The Monsters of Rookhaven, стр. 26
Jem crept downstairs. She was wary of the fact that the hallway opened out into the main vestibule, and she was worried that someone or something might pass by and see her.
As she came closer to the dining-room door, she thought she heard a noise. It sounded like something scraping against metal. Jem listened closely, holding her breath.
There was a flicker of light, orange and wisp-like, at the edge of the door.
She exhaled slowly. Waited. Listened.
The wind gave a low moan outside.
She heard the clink of something metallic, and knew instinctively that it was Tom. Tom who liked bright, shiny things and collecting candlesticks and clocks and ornaments so he could sell them in pursuit of his dream of living in a fancy house. She could picture him right now behind the door, stealing as much as he could, just as he had done so often in other houses the length and breadth of the country while she begged him not to.
Jem relaxed just a little, but she could feel a twinge of anger.
She had to stop him. They were guests here after all. She thought of Mirabelle and felt a wave of shame.
She grabbed the handle and shoved the door open, ready to catch Tom in the act.
She hadn’t expected to be greeted with a blood-curdling howl.
Or by the sight of the horrific candle-lit tableau that lay before her.
The room was filled with monsters, and most of them were eating from a long metal trough that stretched almost the entire length of the table. The enormous bear she and Tom had encountered before pulled its head from the trough and turned to her, baring its yellow teeth, ruby eyes burning with rage as it bellowed at her. Flecks of blood sprayed from its lips and landed on the wooden floor. A writhing black shape twisted beside the bear, its form changing and rippling from one moment to the next as it too bent over the trough. It straightened up and Jem saw the centre of its head fizz with sudden movement as if its very essence was being sucked into a whirlpool, and she felt her gorge rise as she realized a face was forming there.
The howling continued for a few moments as she tumbled into the room, and saw the source of the sound. There were two small creatures dressed in the twins’ clothes. Their faces were gnarled and twisted, their eyes black and shining. They had yellow fangs. They both clung to the large bone they’d obviously been fighting over before Jem entered the room.
You shouldn’t be here, a voice shouted in her mind, and she recognized it as the voice she’d heard earlier that evening. There was something else familiar about it, but she couldn’t think what, and she so wanted to run, but fear had gripped her hard and she couldn’t move.
The cold gust of air caused by the shadow that rose up from the back of the room broke her paralysis.
Jem ran.
She reached the main hallway and raced towards the front door. Her thoughts were wild, panicked and scattered, like leaves in a storm. She grabbed the handle and twisted it.
The door was locked.
Jem pounded on it.
She could feel movement behind her.
She turned.
The creatures were coming towards her. The bear was snapping its jaws and snarling. The two girls were hissing and clawing the air. She saw the lump of dark matter convulsing as it tried to render itself into a recognizable human shape while dragging a dress behind it.
Jem expected the monsters to fall on her. She didn’t expect them to part and make way for the hissing shadow that loped towards her now, extending its wings and gnashing its teeth together as it shrieked at her.
She looked into its face, into its dark eyes, its long incisors. Jem felt her legs almost give way as it lunged towards her.
‘Enoch! No!’
Jem felt a mixture of terror and relief as Mirabelle appeared in front of her, swiftly interposing herself between Jem and the winged bat-like creature.
Enoch, she said Enoch, Jem thought, her mind a flurry as she looked from Mirabelle to the creature.
The monster snarled at Mirabelle, but Mirabelle stepped towards it, her jaw jutting forward defiantly.
‘Leave her alone!’
The creature gave a great flap of its wings and the air cracked. It threw up a gust of wind so strong that Jem was almost knocked off her feet.
Mirabelle, to her credit, stood ramrod straight before it, her fists clenched.
‘I said, leave her alone.’
The monster’s eyes went from Jem to Mirabelle and amazingly its wings started to fold in on themselves. Its features began to flow and smooth to a pale whiteness, and everything changed, except for its eyes which remained completely black and pitiless. It raised its head in a familiar aloof way, and there was now no mistaking the grim face of Uncle Enoch as he glared down at her.
‘She disturbed the sacred feast,’ he snarled at Mirabelle.
Some of the creatures behind him growled in agreement.
‘How was she to know?’ Mirabelle shouted at them.
‘She should show some respect!’ Enoch roared.
The undulating shadow began to flow towards them from the back of the hallway. It made a sound like sand in a gigantic hourglass as the spiders that made up the constituent parts of its body began to flow together and form a familiar shape.
‘Aunt Eliza,’ Jem gasped. Now she remembered the voice she’d heard earlier and why it had sounded so familiar.
Eliza’s face was half formed. Hundreds of spiders rushed together across the floor and joined their fellows as they raced upwards to form the body that now filled the gown they’d been dragging.
Eliza put a restraining hand on Enoch’s arm, and Jem could see the agitation of the spiders as they spun in dark lines and settled together to form her