‘Come on, just tell me.’
He sighs, and wanders across the landing to a narrow window that looks across the frost-covered fields. The sun is low in the sky, and shadows stretch across glittering grass.
‘I just don’t think it’s going to be as easy as you think,’ he says, his breath huffing out at the glass.
‘How hard can it be to find a door? There are, like . . . ten in Pete and Mary’s house, if you don’t count the cupboards!’
‘You’ve seen this place, right?’ He spreads his arms.
‘Yes, but even so! I mean, what, maybe a hundred doors?’
‘But then there are the hidden ones. And what’s a door, anyway?’
‘What do you mean, “what’s a door?” Surely a door is a door? So high –’ I reach up – ‘so wide . . . Look, there’s one right there.’ I march over and pat the solid wood of the nearest door. ‘For example . . .’
‘That’s just an ordinary door,’ he huffs. ‘We’re not looking for an ordinary door, are we? Who knows what a door to a rift looks like. It might be like . . . a tree, or a chimney. Anything!’
‘So what,’ I demand. ‘You’re not just going to give up already, are you? We haven’t even started yet!’
‘I’m not going to give up,’ he says. ‘I’m just warning you, it might take a while. You don’t seem like the most patient person in the world, so I thought I’d say.’
‘Fine,’ I say. ‘I am warned, thank you very much. Now, where shall we start?’
‘Let’s get away from here, anyway,’ he mutters. ‘Sal will be even worse than Aoife if he realizes what we’re up to.’
‘Why?’ I ask. ‘I mean, surely they don’t like being plagued by monsters every evening?’
‘Raksasa,’ he says absently, starting down the corridor. ‘And no, they don’t like it. But it’s all we’ve done for a long time, so I think they probably just want me to get over it and start fighting them off properly.’
‘Killing them?’
He winces. ‘Ultimately, yes.’
‘I thought I wanted that,’ I say. ‘When I saw you fighting before, I was kind of egging you on. And then you did kill it.’
‘I didn’t . . .’
‘Well, you know, we thought you had. And I realized what it cost you.’
‘So you don’t want me to kill them?’
‘No, not if it hurts you. I want to stop them coming.’
‘Well, that’s why we’re doing this,’ he says, gesturing up a narrow wooden staircase.
‘Yes. I just . . . I wanted you to know. In case you have any doubts. I don’t know what it’ll be like, when we find this thing.’ I clatter up the steps, his slow footsteps heavier behind me. ‘But it’ll be fine. It’ll be the right thing to do.’ I look back at him. ‘Whatever happens, Bavar, we’ll do it.’
As I say it, I don’t know whether I’m trying to reassure myself or him, and either way it sounds a bit hollow. He doesn’t reply, and for a split second I am caught in a moment of total unreality, scarpering up narrow steps in a strange house, with an even stranger boy, looking for a window to a monster world. I take a breath and keep going anyway.
One step at a time.
This whole place is so incredible. The further we walk, the more we see, the more I feel in tune with it. Every part of it just gets better, darker, weirder, and there’s so much of it. There are little sunrooms with balconies, cupboards bigger than my bedroom, sitting rooms full of covered furniture. Cobwebs drape from the ceilings of little box rooms, dust thick on patterned carpets. I go into each one, poke around, open things, prod wood panels and crumbling lintels, and Bavar follows me like a cloud. He watches sceptically as I carry out my checks, and then we’re back out into the corridors to face yet more of those portraits with their waxy faces and large, dark eyes watching our every move.
‘Who are all these people?’ I ask eventually.
‘Relatives, ancestors,’ Bavar says, keeping his head bent. ‘Better if you just ignore them, really.’
‘Why, what are they going to do?’ I ask, stopping. I turn to the nearest, of a young woman, dark hair knotted on top of her head, brown eyes wide and knowing. There’s a bit of a sneer on her face. ‘I mean, I know they can be a bit loud . . . Ooh, look, this one’s called Bloodwyn Victorious. She looks . . . nice . . .’
The constant whispering gets louder, and indistinct words roar around me, like the sea getting rough. Bloodwyn looks me up and down and hisses, revealing pointed grey teeth. I jump back, all the little hairs on my skin standing on end.
‘Is that why you put the plants on the graves? So they won’t shout at you?’
Bavar pulls me away, pushes me down the corridor. ‘You’ll get them all going – I told you to ignore them!’ His shadow looms over mine, and a shudder rolls down my back
But it’s OK. What’s the worst that could happen? The worst already happened, I remind myself. This is just a sideshow.
‘Where shall we look, then?’ I’ve lost count of the rooms we’ve checked. It must be dozens, surely, and yet it feels like we’ve hardly begun. I’m beginning to see Bavar’s earlier point. Not that I’m going to tell him that. ‘Do you think these guys will help us?’ I peer up at the next portrait, a jowly man in a frilly collar called Lionel. ‘Hey,’ I whisper.
He blinks.
‘Do you know where the secret door is? The one that leads to the . . .’
Bavar pushes me on before I can finish.
‘They might know!’ I protest.
‘And then what? They’ll tell Aoife . . . and then it’ll all be over.’
I look up at him. ‘Do you really think she can stop you if you want to do this?’
He blows his cheeks out. ‘I don’t know. I’d rather not find out. Let’s check up here.’
‘Why is it all closed up?’ I ask, as he mutters a curse and pulls hard on a heavy wooden door that leads to yet more corridors, all the same wood panelling, and dark maze carpet. We’ve been up and down and around, and now I’ve no idea where we are – it wouldn’t be a surprise if the next stop was back at the kitchen, to be honest.
‘There are only three of us here now,’ he says. ‘We don’t need all these rooms.’
‘It feels weird. Like the house doesn’t like it.’
‘It got used to being busier. Parties, that kind of thing, when my parents were here.’ He mooches forward, and lights wink on as he approaches, throwing shadows up on to the patterned wallpaper.
‘How do you do that?’
‘What?’ He turns to me.
‘The lights – they come on when you’re near!’
‘Oh –’ he looks up – ‘I’m the master of the house.’
I look at him. ‘The Master of the House?’ I intone with a grin.
‘I didn’t say it like that!’
‘Well, still. What does that mean, really?’
‘It means I’m connected to it,’ he says. ‘The magic that opened the rift and brought the raksasa affects everything. Me, the paintings, the lights . . .’
‘So your parents were like you, then. And they fought the monsters –’ I look up at the portraits – ‘and so did all these guys?’
He nods, as a woman lying on a couch bares her teeth at me from the nearest painting.