Troubletwisters

by Garth Nix

  Susan got out of the car and slammed the door behind her.

  ‘You can see it, can’t you?’ Jaide asked Jack.

  Jack narrowed his eyes. He was looking straight at it as far as Jaide could tell, but his face screwed up uncertainly.

  ‘Not really,’ he said. ‘At least, I don’t think so . . . ’

  For a moment everything that had happened in their old home crashed back into Jaide’s mind: the darkness, the wind, the glowing eyes, their father fighting to save them from forces she didn’t understand. It felt like a dream, a nightmare, and she didn’t like the feeling that the nightmare might be more real than the reality before her.

  ‘Are you coming or not?’ called their mother from the front steps.

  ‘Like we have a choice,’ Jaide murmured. She threw open the door. Her feet crunched down onto gravel, and Jack’s followed a second later.

  He was glad to stretch his legs. It had been a long and boring drive. The house loomed over them, no doubt full of their grandmother’s rules and regulations. He couldn’t bear the thought of staying still a moment longer.

  ‘Race you around,’ he said.

  ‘On three,’ Jaide told him, then started running immediately, heading anticlockwise along the front of the house.

  Jack concentrated on catching up, barely hearing their mother’s tsk of exasperation behind them. The earth was loose underfoot, even when he crossed the edge of the gravel and hit the garden proper. There was no lawn, just lots of wood chips and twigs and dead-looking weeds. He turned left, hot on Jaide’s heels, and saw that there was a proper garden behind the house, including a broad lawn that was dominated by a Douglas fir tree that had to be three times the height of the house. Jack wondered why it hadn’t been visible as they’d driven in.

  Jack had almost caught up with Jaide, as he usually did unless she had a really huge headstart, and was about to grab her hoodie and pull her back when a sudden, stern voice above their heads made him stumble.

  ‘You’ll be on your very best behaviour. I expect nothing less!’

  The voice came from a half-open window midway along the side of the house. Jaide skidded to a halt, assuming the telling-off was directed at them. Jack crashed into her back and they both fell over.

  ‘Are you arguing with me?’ the voice continued.

  The twins disentangled themselves from each other and looked nervously up at the window. But there was no one leaning out, and they realised that whoever the woman above was telling off, it wasn’t them.

  ‘Do you think that’s —?’ whispered Jack.

  Jaide shushed her brother even as she jumped up and tried to see inside, hoping for a glimpse of whoever was talking, presumably Grandma X. Jaide was a great jumper and climber, better than Jack. He had the edge in a straight sprint on level ground, but if there was any climbing or scrambling up something involved, Jaide always left him behind.

  ‘I’ll keep my side of the compact if you’ll keep yours,’ said the unseen woman.

  A deep-toned bell chime resonated through the house. Something clattered inside the kitchen.

  ‘Shhh, they’re here.’

  Jaide managed to pull herself up enough to see over the sill just in time to catch a glimpse of a tall, elderly woman with silvery hair disappearing through a doorway. She wore a long-sleeved black shirt tucked into the top of blue jeans, a belt that sparkled as though it had metal threaded through it, and cowboy boots with silver heels and tips. The sound of those boots on the polished floorboards ricocheted after her, brisk and no-nonsense.

  There was no one else there. Grandma X might as well have been talking to the air, or to herself.

  Jack pulled himself up next to Jaide just as something leaped onto the windowsill from inside. The twins both fell back in surprise, ending up in a tangle on the ground again.

  ‘Meow?’ asked a sturdy ginger tomcat, looking down at them with a quizzical expression.

  Jack felt his elbow, which hurt, and laughed in relief. ‘You gave me a fright.’

  The cat turned its head to one side, sniffed, and began to lick its paws, totally ignoring the twins.

  ‘Kids? Where are you?’

  Susan’s voice travelled through the house and around it, ambushing them from all sides.

  ‘On three,’ said Jack, but he was already moving.

  He was well in the lead by the time he reached the next corner. The trunk of the mighty fir flashed by, and he almost stumbled on its roots, which rose like the coils of a serpent out of the earth all around the tree. Those roots were making short work of the yard’s stone walls, which stood cracked and tumbled on all three sides. Over the fallen walls, Jaide caught a quick glimpse of the neighbouring house. Its windows were smashed and doors boarded up, and there were black marks all up one wall that looked like they were from a fire. It had clearly not been lived in for a long time.

  The southern side of Grandma X’s house was a featureless, smooth brick wall with no windows below the third floor. As they skidded around the last corner and came back to the front door, Jack slowed slightly to let his sister catch up, but not enough that she could win.

  ‘There you are.’ Susan was waiting at the top of the stone steps, speaking cheerfully but with a forced edge that told the twins not to push their luck. ‘Come meet your grandma.’

  Jaide joined Jack, breathing heavily. Standing so close they touched shoulders, they walked together up the steps. The door at the top led into a hallway so dark and gloomy that Jack could only make out shapes and Jaide couldn’t see anything at all.

  ‘The twins, at last,’ said the same voice they had heard through the window. Grandma X stepped out of the gloom, her hands outstretched, reaching for the twins as if to grab them and pull them back into the darkness. Jack flinched away, but Jaide didn’t move, struck at once by how much Grandma X looked like their father, especially in the eyes. Though hers were as grey as granite and their father’s a more kindly brown, they both had the same bright, piercing gaze.

  Jack didn’t notice her eyes. He was just shocked at how fast she was, as she gripped him by the shoulder and Jaide by her hand and drew them both in to kiss their foreheads before letting them go.

  ‘I knew you’d come one day,’ she said. ‘And look at how grown up you are! Already twelve, already troubletwisters.’

  ‘What is a troubletwister?’ asked Jaide.

  ‘That’s a story for another time,’ Grandma X said, putting her arms around their shoulders. ‘Won’t you come inside and see your new home?’

  ‘We won’t be staying long,’ said Susan, following closely behind. ‘Just until everything’s fixed.’

  Grandma X sniffed. ‘You are welcome for as long as you need. I have plenty of room.’

  Grandma X took the twins with her through the door. Jaide stepped hesitantly across the threshold, eyes adjusting slowly to the darkness. Four tall chestnut and mahogany cabinets lined the sides of the front hall, all of them latched shut, the latches fastened with heavy old bronze padlocks. The air smelled odd, a mixture of the thick, damp smell of old wood and something else, something that neither Jack nor Jaide could identify, but made them think of ancient things. This reminded Jaide of the blue door and the weird antique shop sign. She had been so busy chasing Jack that she hadn’t seen it when they’d run around the house, and for some reason it had gone right out of her mind. Now the smell brought back that lost memory, and she wanted to check it out.

  ‘Hang on,’ Jaide said, pulling free. ‘I want to get something from the car.’

  ‘Hang on yourself,’ protested Jack. He made a grab at her arm, and she was unable to shrug him off. Together they stumbled back out into daylight. There, Jaide turned to look at the front of the house.

  For an instant, both the sign and the blue door were nowhere to be seen. There was only an expanse of weathered, pinkish brick where she thought they’d been.

  Then she blinked, and they were back.

  ‘I didn’t imagine it,’ she told Jac
k. ‘I knew it!’

  Jack stared at the door, and the sign, and the words: ANTIQUES AND CHOICE ARTICLES FOR THE DISCERNING.

  ‘You were right,’ he said, amazed that what seemed so solid now had been barely visible before. ‘Why couldn’t I see it at first?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Jaide said. ‘And why couldn’t Mum see it at all?’

  ‘Kids?’ came Susan’s voice from inside. She sounded cross, and was trying unsuccessfully to hide it. ‘Come on, don’t be rude, please.’

  ‘This is weird,’ Jaide said, more to herself than to her brother.

  ‘Definitely weird,’ Jack responded, and he flashed her a grin that surprised her. ‘Maybe Portland will be more interesting than we thought.’

  Something squeaked above them. The weathervane was shifting, slowly and thoughtfully, to point to the south. But the poplars in the drive and the topmost branches of the great fir tree were still bending west in answer to the easterly wind that had grown stronger, herding in a huge mass of dark, angry clouds.

  Jaide shivered, but not entirely from the coolness of the wind. She pulled her hoodie up and hurried inside, with Jack following closely behind her.

  ‘LOUNGE, DRAWING ROOM, STUDY, KITCHEN,’ their grandma was saying, sweeping down the hallway like a ship in full sail, tapping on doorways as she passed them. The back half of the hall, past the locked cabinets, was dominated by a number of stern-faced portraits that peered down their noses from the walls. Beyond the paintings there were two glass-fronted bookcases that, instead of holding books, displayed a collection of curious trinkets: snow globes, crystalline animals, brass ornaments and the like, all arranged neatly but with no obvious sense of order.

  Jack and Jaide caught up, hurrying lightly on their sneakers, their scuffling footsteps a sharp contrast to the crack of Grandma X’s boots. At the very end of the hall, alone on the wall, a tiny silver mirror caught Jack’s eye as he was hustled past it to the stairs. He saw his and his sister’s faces in it, stretched and twisted into a pair of question marks.

  ‘I’ve prepared rooms for you on the second floor,’ Grandma X said as she led them up the creaking steps. The stairwell was as wide across as most rooms, and continued into the shadows far above.

  ‘I’m sorry it’s come to this,’ Susan said, walking one step behind her. ‘I hope we won’t be staying long and —’

  ‘Think nothing of it,’ interrupted Grandma X. ‘You are my daughter-in-law, and the troubletwisters are my grandchildren. Blood is thicker than water. Our blood, especially.’

  ‘Yes, I’d like to talk to you about that.’ Susan shot a swift glance at the twins. ‘Later.’

  ‘Don’t fret, my dear.’ Grandma X stopped at the first turn on the stairs and looked down at her guests. They stopped expectantly beneath her. The dim light cast deep shadows in her lined face. ‘Prudence is my middle name.’

  ‘What’s prudence?’ asked Jack.

  ‘It means being careful,’ said Susan.

  ‘And it really was my middle name,’ said Grandma X with a faint smile. ‘Once upon a time.’

  ‘What does the X stand for?’ asked Jaide.

  Instead of answering, their grandmother continued up the stairs.

  Susan put a finger to her lips. Jack nudged his sister, and she nudged him back. They didn’t need to put into words what they were thinking, which was that the longer they were in their grandmother’s company, the odder she seemed. Her house was odd, too. It wasn’t just the mystery of the blue door. Everywhere Jaide and Jack looked, strange details caught their eyes, like the compass wallpaper featuring letters other than N, W, S and E – they weren’t even English letters – and banisters that looked less carved than grown into long spirals. There were more paintings and, on the first-floor landing, the occasional old, silver-tinted photo of a person from ancient times. Some of them had little brass nameplates on the bottoms of the frames. Jack peered closely, wondering if they were related to Grandma X, and therefore to him.

  Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa. Ursula Southeil. Lorenzo Ghiberti. Helena Drebbel.

  None of the names rang a bell.

  ‘I’ve put you in here, Susan,’ said Grandma X. She opened the door to show a narrow, L-shaped room with windows down the long wall that overlooked the old, empty house next door. There was a single bed tucked into one corner and a heavy wardrobe looming next to it.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Susan. She was unable to hide a small sigh in her voice. The twins knew she was thinking of her old bedroom, the one that she had shared with their father. A shiver of memory ran through Jack, of white eyes and bulging animal faces, but he suppressed it. There was nothing here to be frightened of, he told himself. It was just . . . odd. Different. Not home.

  Grandma X swivelled on her heel and indicated the door opposite Susan’s room.

  ‘This will be yours, troubletwisters.’

  Jaide and Jack pushed the door open. It was very heavy, and creaked. The first thing both of them saw was a golden chandelier suspended from a dome in the ceiling. It had four points like a ceiling fan, and hung almost as low as Grandma X’s silver hair.

  The chandelier’s metallic angles caught and reflected the light streaming through the high windows that faced the front of the house. Strange gleams and shadows flitted across the two four-poster beds, which had curiously patterned brocade curtains. These were drawn back and tied at the posts, but when let loose would make the beds like perfect little tents inside the room.

  There were matching wooden chests beside the beds, and another solid wardrobe tucked into the opposite corner. The floor was bare, polished board, like everywhere else they’d seen in the house, but there was a thick blue rug to fill the space between the beds. It had a gold, four-pointed pattern woven into it, a compass symbol very much like the one on the ceiling that rose directly above it, and on the wallpaper from the other room, and on the card their grandmother had sent. It was like a coat of arms, cropping up everywhere around her.

  The walls were painted white, giving the room a lightness that ran counter to the gloom and mystery of the rest of the house.

  ‘I get this one,’ said Jaide, rushing forward to claim the bed on the left. Mattress and posts squeaked as she jumped on it, crumpling the coverlet under her knees. Jack was less enthusiastic. He, too, missed his room back home, just as he missed the familiar streets of his suburb, and his friends, but he was happy enough with the other bed. He bet that if he pressed close to the window from his side he could glimpse the sea.

  ‘I think you’ll be comfortable here,’ said their grandma from the doorway. ‘Let’s go down and have some lunch. You must be tired after the trip.’

  ‘What’s on the next floor up?’ asked Jaide.

  ‘That’s where I sleep,’ Grandma X replied.

  ‘Don’t go up there,’ Susan warned the twins. ‘We mustn’t invade your grandma’s privacy any more than we already have.’

  ‘It’s not an invasion. I’ve been expecting you.’

  ‘That’s, uh, very kind. But you don’t want these two little whirlwinds going through your things.’

  ‘Perhaps you’re right,’ said Grandma X thoughtfully. ‘In any case, I must ask you to particularly avoid the widow’s walk at the very top of the stairs. This is an old house and the roof needs work. I’d hate for you to slip and take a fall.’

  ‘Did you hear that, kids? Stay right away from there.’

  Jack nodded. Jaide made a movement that her mother accepted as agreement, though in fact she was thinking of the here-and-gone-again antique shop. Grandma X hadn’t mentioned it.

  ‘Is that the only place we can’t go?’ Jaide asked.

  ‘Can’t go?’ said Grandma X. ‘There are places you should not go, certainly, as I have mentioned. Then there are other places to which you may not yet have found your way.’

  Jack gave Jaide a what? look, but his sister was only intrigued. That sounded to her like permission to explore, perhaps even a challenge.

  ‘Thi
s house was modernised some fifty years ago,’ said Grandma X as she led them back downstairs to the kitchen. ‘It has central heating, electricity and a telephone. That probably seemed modern enough to the people who owned it back then.’

  ‘What about television?’ Jack asked.

  ‘I can’t abide television, of any sort,’ Grandma X replied, making both twins’ stomachs sink. ‘If I want to watch a movie, I’ll go to the cinema.’

  ‘And the internet?’ Jaide added in desperation.

  Grandma X looked down at her, and a slow smile spread across her face.

  ‘I have found the World Wide Web useful. I’ll give you the password when you’re settled in. However, my own computer must remain private, I’m afraid. Perhaps you have brought your own?’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Susan. ‘Normal rules apply, guys. You can use my laptop, after everything is packed away.’

  Their luggage was still in the car. They had brought what little had survived the explosion with them, supplemented by new clothes hastily bought from a department store before leaving the city. Everything they owned in the world was contained in just a few bags.

  ‘You should eat first,’ said Grandma X firmly. ‘Lunch is ready.’

  A platter lay on the chrome kitchen table, protected from more than just flies by a Portland Lighthouse tea-towel. The broad-shouldered ginger tom the twins had seen before looked up from its contemplation of the covered food as they entered. Its nose twitched hopefully.

  ‘Not for you, Ari,’ said Grandma X, shooing the cat away. ‘That’s Aristotle. Watch out for him. He’ll take the food out of your mouth if you let him, particularly if Kleo isn’t around to keep him in check.

  ‘Where’s she got to, by the way?’ she added, speaking directly to the cat. ‘I thought she’d be here to say hello.’

  Ari jumped onto the sink and flicked his tail.

  ‘Perhaps she will grace us with her presence later,’ said Grandma X as she handed out plates and swept away the tea-towel, revealing a generous spread of bread, cold meat, cheese and salad. ‘Do you like lemonade? I’ll get us all a glass each.’