The cornerstones looked like chunks of dark and vanilla-white chocolate, and the cement between the stones looked like bloody-red trails of sticky candy. The wood looked like the surface of hazelnut granola bars; crunchy, sweet, and edible. Loki licked his lips briefly, and felt an unexplained urge to touch the house to make sure it wasn’t really candy, but he didn’t want to embarrass himself in front of Axel.
The lantern above the porch was the shape of a pumpkin with smiling eyes and fang-like teeth; the yellow shimmering from inside complimented the ember shade of candles shimmering from behind the windows of the house. Candy House was spooky in a Halloween sort of way. Loki was confused because he felt good about it. He almost felt at home for the first time in the Ordinary World—if he could actually count Sorrow as part of the Ordinary World.
It can’t be. This feeling isn’t real. Sorrow is playing with my mind. I have only one home that I belong to.
Axel tried to open the door with a key that was the shape of a gingerbread man, but he couldn’t because of a spider web that was covering the keyhole. It seemed a bit odd to Loki that the house Axel lived in looked as if it had been abandoned for years.
“Something wrong?” Loki asked worriedly.
“Nah, it’s just my sister’s spiders. They love to play games with me so I can’t get into the house,” Axel said nonchalantly. “They don’t like me too much.”
“Sister? Spiders?” Loki said, wondering why everyone treated poor Axel like a second-class citizen, even the spiders.
And back in Snoring you thought you were the only one treated this way.
Axel didn’t reply. He kicked the door with his boot as if he were a Kung-Fu master. The frame crackled and the door flung wide open.
Axel spread his hospitable arms, “Welcome to the Crumblewoods!”
“Crumblewoods?”
“I’m a Crumblewood,” Axel said proudly. “Axel Crumblewood,” he stretched out a hand to Loki. “And I’m going to kick your butt,” Axel laughed, imitating Loki at the parking lot. “Nice line by the way—shame on Batman for not using it. But here we are, the Crumblewood’s House, also known as Candy House, located at Seven, Breadcrumb Street, the last house at the edge of the world—that’s how the mailman likes to describe it,” Axel whispered.
Aside from silly names, dust, and creepiness, Loki still had a good feeling about the house. It felt insta-comfy, as if he’d been here before, but it was probably the fact that he’d been sleeping in his Cadillac for almost a year. It crossed his mind to ask Axel if they had an extra room he could rent later.
Inside, the house glared with a different vibe. It was like a teenager’s wonderland, devoid of any parental control. There was a big living room overlooking an open kitchen up front. The walls were also the color of chocolate, and there was a huge rug in the middle; its colors varied between vanilla, strawberry, and mango. There was also a huge TV, a comfortable red couch the shape of a liver, and a hammock hinged between two trees, which supported the structure as columns protruded out of the earth. Loki was impressed, and wondered if he could have a house like this when he returned to Heaven.
The Candy House was heated with a fireplace that looked like a huge oven, and it was lit with candles and chandeliers. The inner walls were made of bales of straw that were stacked on stones and staked with hazel sticks. Loki spotted another unused big, black, oven in the kitchen, which was either really old or a decorative antique. The house was definitely weird but looked like fun. Loki wondered about Axel’s parents but decided not to ask so he wouldn’t sound intrusive.
All of a sudden, the fun was gone…
The front door slammed shut on its own behind Loki, and a spiraling breeze swirled against the windows, blowing the white curtains inwardly into ghostly waves as if there was an invisible big bad wolf puffing the house from the outside.
“You have demons in your house?” Loki flinched, flashing his Alicorn.
“Well,” Axel shrugged. “It’s my sister,” he started breathing heavily and his eyes rolled to the top of their sockets as if his sister was plastered to the ceiling.
“Your sister is a demon, too?”
“Of course, not,” Axel said, fidgeting. “She is a witch; a wannabe witch.”
“Stop it, Fable!” Axel shouted at the swinging chandelier dangling from the ceiling. Books started falling from the shelves and the tree-column swayed slightly. The house seemed to crumble and rumble as if they were standing in the belly of a whale that’d just had a heavy meal. Loki ducked to avoid a couple of flying dishes. It devastated him that he was still a mortal, and was about to die in a silly wannabe-witch’s attack that he could not stop.