Horace, Miss Trang, and Tengu settled happily into their new rooms, and Mab had her modernist hive hung in a corner of the parlour. At first it hung above the sofa, but Baz liked to sit on the sofa back and bat at it until Mab tumbled out, livid with anger but too dizzy to give Baz a proper zap. So the nest was moved to a spot across the room where Baz couldn’t get at it, and at night it glowed in the dark like a patio lantern.
Willa brought over the large birdcage from her house, but Roshni seemed so happy roaming about the house “free range” that she decided not to cage her.
Roshni wasn’t the only unexpected return. The first night that frost was forecast, Willa heard a faint tapping at the front door and opened it to find the hibiscus, a little limp but still green, sitting there on a black ball of earth and roots.
“Oh my goodness! I’m so sorry, I forgot all about you,” said Willa. She carefully repotted the plant and placed it on the mantle next to a large ceramic bowl. This bowl contained a fairy-sized silver scarf, very small knitting needles, and the most valuable item in the entire house: a tiny ball of silver yarn about the size of a raspberry. This yarn was Eldritch Manor’s time talisman, and Mab spent every day knitting it into a scarf to keep time moving forward. As the hours passed, the stitches at the bottom pulled out; Mab had to keep knitting new rows so it wouldn’t disappear entirely. If that happened, Eldritch Manor and everyone within the bounds of the property would be ripped out of human time, deposited into a grey void. That alone was frightening enough, but if the evil creatures from the dark side ever managed to steal that ball of yarn, it would allow them to come and go at will in the human world, wreaking all kinds of havoc and destruction.
Willa peeked into the bowl and poked at the yarn with her finger. It didn’t make sense that something so tiny could hold that much power. Then again, Willa had to admit that nothing about Eldritch Manor made much sense.
Chapter Two
Telepathy, phobias, and siren song
As November drew to an end, the temperature dropped, and Miss Trang continued to slow down. When Willa chatted with her, she had time to count the seconds between each word. One day she counted four seconds, a few days later eighteen seconds, and when it hit twenty-seven, Willa started avoiding her. She felt bad about it, but it was just too hard to remember what they were talking about for the length of an entire sentence. Miss Trang didn’t seem to mind; she withdrew from the life of the house and rarely emerged from her room.
Tengu spent most of his time jogging around the park, or stalking and pouncing on invisible foes in the yard. The dwarves continued work on the second storey. They also removed the high construction fence to give back the view of the street but put up fencing at the sides of the house to keep the backyard private.
Robert hosted convivial evenings with the dwarves, and the others sometimes joined in. Ancient card games were played, and a goodly volume of red dwarvish port was consumed.
For his part, Horace never played cards. He preferred to sit by the fire and observe the others. His memory lapses used to cause him much anxiety, but after the recent uproar he had become much more philosophical about it all. Whenever he couldn’t remember something, he’d simply sigh and smile. He told Willa it was foolish for anyone over two thousand years of age to get fired up over simply growing old.
“It behooves one of my advanced years to be more serene about the travails of existence,” he would say dreamily and smile. “There’s no point in flipping out over what I can’t change.” Willa noticed too that the others had become more protective of him. Whenever Horace grew confused, they — Belle and Baz mostly — drew near, taking his hand in theirs and reassuring him with their presence.
Whatever might befall his memory, Horace’s sense of humour remained intact. One day, he and Willa were out for a walk, and they ran into Mr. and Mrs. Hacker, their tremendously irritating neighbours. Horace showed no signs of recognizing them, but after they passed by he leaned over to Willa, and whispered, “I know perfectly well who they are, I’d just rather not know, if you catch my meaning.”
Since the eventful night on Hanlan’s Hill, the Hackers had kept a wary distance. Willa knew Mr. Hacker had been quite shaken by those strange events, not the least of which was having his car crushed by a falling boulder. He even seemed a little frightened of Horace and Willa, often crossing the street to avoid them, which suited them just fine.
Willa had recently discovered she was able to send mental messages to people, an ability that filled her with pride but also made her a little anxious, because she didn’t really understand how it could be possible. She felt she shouldn’t let too many people know about it yet, but decided she could confide in Horace.
“Do you remember on Hanlan’s Hill, how I talked to you with my mind?” she asked him one day.
“Yes.”
“I’ve been wondering how I did it. How does it work?”
He looked surprised. “In the usual way, I suppose.”
“This isn’t exactly usual!”
“What do you mean? Don’t all humans have this ability?”
“No!” Willa laughed.
“Well, that puts it in a different light,” Horace said slowly. “It must be due to the renegade in your family tree.”
“You mean Belle?”
“Most certainly. Would you like some assistance with your telepathic communications?”
“Yes, please.”
And so Horace began to help her strengthen and control this power. They’d sit across from each other and send mental messages back and forth. In the beginning, Willa could only do it slowly and with great effort, but with practice it came easier, and they held many a long, effortless conversation without uttering a word.
“It’s as easy as talking!” Willa marvelled one day. “I hardly know I’m doing it!”
Horace shook a warning finger at her. “Be mindful. Do it with intent and not just for a lark.” He sat back wearily. “Don’t overuse it. All powers come with a price.”
“What kind of price?”
“It’s not always obvious what you are losing. Not right away.” He rubbed his forehead. “Many would disagree with me and insist that a special ability has no downside, but I feel in my heart that something is lost whenever you gain a powerful skill like this.” He turned to look out the window, and Willa knew he was thinking about his own memory loss. She promised herself she’d practice her ability but not use it lightly. And she never mentioned it to anyone else.
A few doors down from Horace was Belle’s room. The mermaid was very pleased to have her own space again; she was much more relaxed and less cranky. The porch ramp allowed her to wheel herself out the front door and down into the yard, which she couldn’t do on her own before. The dwarves even paved a walkway for her that circled the house and branched off to the stable and woods. Not that she went into the woods much; Belle regarded the fairies there as nuisances, too foolish to bother with.
Willa knew Belle liked her privacy, but she gingerly began visiting every day after school, tiptoeing through the dusty disaster zone of the kitchen and making tea, then knocking on Belle’s door. Belle’s scowl would vanish when she saw it was Willa, a fact that Willa noted and cherished. They sat together over tea, and Willa found that if she didn’t ask too many questions, Belle would start talking on her own. She didn’t talk about Grandpa or Willa’s mom, but for the first time she told stories about her early years under the sea, stories about castles on the ocean floor and bizarre creatures of the deep, about playing hide-and-seek in waving kelp beds and hitching the occasional ride on a manta ray. She often said she’d love to show Willa these things.
“I don’t swim,” Willa always replied, but Belle never seemed to hear it. She was fixated on the idea of taking Willa swimming, and Willa didn’t have the heart to tell her it could never, ever happen. The embarrassing