I slammed back into the reality of the empty room, still breathing hard. “What was that place? Where you hide the bodies of your enemies?”
No, you tickle-brained canker blossom, Al said. That was a malefactor nursery. My own!
“Eesh. That explains a lot.” I shivered, patting at my hair to make sure it had all been an illusion. “Wait. I thought you ate spiders? You mean they raise you, and then you eat them?”
Only the small ones. That is beside the point.
Downstairs lie witch dolls and other beings, Al continued, as well as an obscene amount of useless spider-webbing.
“All right,” I said, turning around, trying to picture it. “I can see it. It’d be easy enough for someone to hide in here and make the spider noises. I just need to find some paint—”
There was a cabinet full of black and white paint downstairs, hidden behind where the cleaner had tried to fold and store the zombie victim’s gurney. A few brushes too, which was more than I’d hoped for. I hesitated, wondering if it would really be okay to paint the spiders and stones on the wall, and then just went for it.
Al was mostly silent as I worked, occasionally weighing in on the design with his usual bluntness, but mostly I just felt the hum of power and happiness buzzing through my veins as I painted and painted and painted. Leaving my work to dry, I went down to wrap the stuffed witches and one of the skeletons in the webbing.
I flipped the first witch over and fell back onto my bottom with an embarrassingly loud gasp. Her plastic face, from her black eyes to her wart-covered chin, had been mauled. It looked like a claw had torn through it.
“What the…?”
Fiends and witches are enemies. Nell had said that, right? Whoever—or whatever—attacked the witch mannequins clearly hated them. It looked like they would have set them on fire, if they’d had matches. Something heavy settled in my stomach.
“You do know who did this,” I said out loud. “Don’t you?”
Alastor said nothing, but I felt the slightest tremor of fear ripple through my heart.
When the front door finally opened, I shot up to my feet. “Nell, I’m in—”
But it wasn’t Nell. It was Missy.
She was wearing a long black overcoat with a high collar, her braided hair falling down her back like the knobs of a spine. Toad, back in CatBat form, was perched happily on her shoulder, chewing on a loose strand of her hair. Under one arm was a heavy, leather-bound book.
I stared at the changeling in confusion. “You get lost, little buddy?”
“He knows to come straight to me if there is trouble.” Missy glanced around quickly, her lips pressed in a tight line. “Nell isn’t here, is she?”
I shook my head, unsure of what to say. Alastor only hissed at her sudden appearance, making Toad’s ears stand straight up.
“I’ll work quickly, then,” Missy said, opening the book and flipping through its coarse, yellowed pages. “Nell’s father won’t like it that I’ve come. I encourage you not to say anything, if you value your short, doomed life.”
That was a new one. I didn’t know Missy well enough to know if she was making a joke or a prophecy. “Nell already threatened to rearrange my body parts, so, believe me, your secret’s safe with me.”
“Good,” she said, then, finally, looked up at me. “This looks different—did something happen to the house?”
I quickly explained.
“And you did all of this yourself?”
“Yes,” I said.
Ahem.
“Er, mostly. Nell went off to find Uncle Barnabas, so I tried to restore the house the best I could. The tour groups are coming tonight to do a walk-through and I knew it was important to her, so I just—”
“You did all of this for Nell?”
“Well, yeah. And Uncle Barnabas. There were a few things I couldn’t replicate because of, you know…” Magic.
“Yes, I know,” she said absently, violet eyes fixed on the pages as she turned them. “I helped Tabitha—Nell’s mother—and Nell enchant them. Oh, here we are—she did write it all down.”
“What’s that?” I asked, leaning forward to get a better look.
Missy jerked the book away. “Do not touch it—not even for a moment. It’s enchanted to destroy itself before falling into a fiend’s hands.”
Just like Goody Prufrock’s book had. “Is that Nell’s grimoire—her book of spells and notes?”
“Her mother’s,” Missy said. “All right, Prosperity Redding. I’ll finish what you’ve begun, but I’ll need your help, if you’re willing?”
“Yeah, of course,” I said. “Just tell me what to do.”
“Right,” Missy said. “Then your first task, young man, is to go up to the attic, open every window on your way, and take a nice, long shower.”
“That bad?” I asked.
The woman gave me a pitying smile. “Worse.”
By the time I finished showering and dousing my clothes in air freshener, Missy was nearly done with her work, and all that was left was for me to dutifully hold a candle with her as she added a touch of tiny spiders to the room upstairs, all spun from smoke and shadow.
“There’s one more thing,” I said. “If you have time…”
Earlier, Al had made a good point about the House of Seven Terrors being a business, and one that needed to be taken seriously. Whether Nell wanted to actually use it, I thought it would be a good thing to have a real logo for the business. Something she could put on a sign outside or in flyers.
I brought Missy up to the attic, where I’d pulled one of the white curtains off the window. Missy’s face went pinched as she looked around, the whites of her eyes going pink at the edges.
I had already painted a black version of the tree out in the yard, along with the many little roofs on each level of the house. All I needed was to write the words House of Seven Terrors.
“Missy,” I said. Then I said it again, louder.
She turned toward me, startled. “What is it?”
“Is there any way to…Do you remember what Nell’s mom’s handwriting looked like? I wanted to try to copy it for the sign.”
Her eyes widened. “There’s a spell for that. Here, may I have the paintbrush?”
I dipped it into what was left of the black paint before handing it over to her. She flipped the grimoire open to a page and began to whisper to herself, moving her fingers along the handwriting on the page. The words began to swirl, then flowed toward the paintbrush, being absorbed into it. When she brought the tip of it to the curtain, the brush seemed to move on its own, the words she’d lifted from the book spilling out onto the fabric.
After we hung the sign up over the porch, I walked Missy to the back door. Toad took it upon himself to climb her ropelike braid to lick her cheek.
“I know, old friend, I miss you too,” she told him, scratching him beneath the chin. “Come see me when you can, but only when Nell is safe at school and under Eleanor’s watch. Remember your promise to Tabitha to protect her.”
I tried to fade into the background to give them their moment, but I couldn’t help but ask, “Eleanor? The spider? That Eleanor? She’s, what, another changeling?”
“My own,” Missy said.