The Monster Hunter's Manual (4 page)

“They like you and they salute you as the heirs of Chateau Larcher. The next Lords of the castle,” Eleanor said.

Music filled the hall and mole people shoved large
goblets of a sticky sweet nectar into our hands. The mole people danced around our feet and occasionally stopped to say something to us in French. I smiled at them and pretended to understand.

“They have been the defenders of this place since long before my time,” Eleanor said. “They've been here since the ancients built the first dolmen in honor of the spirits that keep it.”

“What's a dolmen?” I asked.

“You haven't seen the dolmen?”

Alex and I both shook our heads.

“You have much to learn before you take the chateau,” she said.

One of the Molemen pulled at my shirt and I kneeled down so I could hear him better. He handed me a necklace of some sort. It was a cross with a dragon on it. It was beautiful, like the gilded breastplates the Molemen wore. It looked like one of the amulets from the magic game I used to play back home. I gave the amulet back to the Moleman, but he only seemed frustrated by me. The music continued and the Moleman spoke to me urgently, as if he was saying something very important.

I looked up at Eleanor desperately, hoping she might translate, but she was dancing with the Molewomen. Her skirts were up and she was laughing merrily. The Moleman kept talking and occasionally his voice rose to a yell and then he put the amulet back in my hand and bowed to me.

Alex watched the entire exchange with curiosity. “Wow,” he said. “Is this really happening?”

“It has to be,” I answered. “Doesn't it?”

I gazed at the beautiful gold cross amulet in my hand. The dragon in the center of it was holding an enormous ruby. I held it for a few moments and then reluctantly placed it around my neck.

The music continued and a Molewoman danced around Alex. He laughed. I hadn't seen him laugh since our parents died. He smiled as two Molewomen pulled him away from me and he began to dance. The music was sweet and energetic. The Molemen played flutes and strange stringed instruments that wove together a music so sweet, I could have forgotten all my worries. The church bell above us rang, once, twice, three times, and the music stopped. The Molemen looked upwards and removed their hats. They muttered something and bowed to us as they vanished into their black tunnels. It all ended as quickly as it began. By the time the bells had rung seven times the hall was as quiet as it had been to start.

“It's time to return to pray,” Eleanor explained. “They always pray when the bell strikes seven. We should go.”

Eleanor led us back through the darkness and into the light where she became little more than a whisper again. “Did you like my friends?”

“Very much,” I answered.

“Will you come see me again?”

“We would love too,” Alex said.

“There is so much more to show you and it's been so long since I've had other children to play with,” she said in a soft, almost sad voice.

I could hear Aunt Perrine's voice calling to us somewhere in the distance. “We should go,” I said.

“Come see me tomorrow,” Eleanor said. A strong wind blew and she vanished, leaving us wondering if she had ever been there at all. Alex and I both looked at each other and then walked, in complete silence, back home.

I think we both wondered if we had imagined it all. It seemed completely impossible. Ghosts? Molemen? The only thing that kept me from completely dismissing our afternoon as a vivid daydream was the amulet I had put
around my neck. Its weight reminded me that it might have been real.

Alex and I stepped in to the warm smell of food. Our portion of the castle, our new home, was bright and cheery. The windows were still open and Aunt Perrine had moved the table out to the lawn in front of the house.

“Bonjour!” Aunt Perrine exclaimed as we entered. “I have dinner.”

“Bonjour,” I answered pleasantly. The food smelled wonderful.

“Wash your 'ands and I we will eat outside.”

Alex and I washed in silence and sat down at the pretty lawn outside the castle. Our plates were piled high with some kind of beans and sausage. There was bread and some sort of vegetable mix to go with it.

“Eat, eat,” Aunt Perrine said. “You boys look like you 'ave been 'aving an adventure.”

“Oh, we have!” Alex exclaimed.

“Oh la la. You will have to tell me all about it.”

I sat down and tasted the food. It was delicious. I smiled and filled my mouth with more food as Alex explained our day to Aunt Perrine. Aunt Perrine nodded and smiled as she ate and listened. She had a full glass of red wine and she drank deeply and seemed to be taking Alex's story very seriously.

Alex smiled as he talked. He was thrilled and I ate happily, because for the first time since Mom and Dad died, Alex and I were having fun. When he had finished telling the story, Alex ate enthusiastically and Aunt Perrine was silent.

Finally,” she said. “I'm glad to see you boys settling in and I'm glad you are both 'appy 'ere.”

“This is good,” Alex said as he ate. “I think Mom used to make this sometimes. What is it?” Chunks of food fell out
of his mouth as he attempted to eat and talk at the same time. His speech was garbled and the food stuck to his shirt. I shriveled my nose in disgust and looked away.

I took another bite and realized Mom did used to make it. I couldn't believe I had forgotten. How could I forget? It was Dad's favorite.

Aunt Perrine smiled as she talked. She always seemed so happy. “It's Cassolette. Is very good. Your father always loved my Cassolette.”

The sun set over the castle gates painting the courtyard a bright pink and then faded. We helped Aunt Perrine clean and she sang as she cleaned.

Night came and Aunt Perrine watched us go upstairs to get ready for bed. When we were done, she told us a story.

“Once upon a time…”
she said. “All stories start with once upon a time…There
was a queen who had been born poor
.
Fate had made her quick witted and she had married far above her station, but her husband was dim witted and was a very poor ruler. The king and queen had a baby, a beautiful baby girl whom they both loved. There were many who envied the happiness of the king and queen and their lovely baby. One of these was the mighty green dragon Verdi. Verdi was clever and hated the king's stupidity. He thought it a cruel twist of fate that such land and wealth and such a brilliant queen should be given to a dimwit. So this clever dragon devised a plan to expose the king and set the queen on the throne…”

“But why did the dragon care?” Alex asked.

“He didn't really. Dragons never do, but dragons sometimes will destroy things that offer them even the mildest irritation. Most dragons hate people and are easily provoked.
Time passed and the dragon made his plans. He planned to trick the king. The dragon told the king that if he brought his daughter to him, he would show him how to find a mountain of gold. The king was also greedy, so he quickly agreed
.
“When the queen found out that her daughter was missing, she searched everywhere for her little girl. When she realized there was no help to be had in finding the little girl, she went to the tower and fetched a book of old spells. She cast the old magic, and using that magic, she found the dragon. But it was too late. The young girl had already been devoured and the king entombed in his mountain of gold, but the queen was angry so she spun a spell so powerful that the ground itself shook. The stones of heaven fell down onto earth and when the dragon realized what he had done
,
he shuddered, for the queen's spell killed not just him, but all dragons everywhere. The very earth opened up and swallowed them whole. It devoured them as the dragon had devoured the queen's daughter
.

“But fate is not without a sense of humor and the queen's daughter was cursed to walk the earth until the queen herself died. The princess would never know rest, until the sorceress queen died. The princess was cursed to be a ghost until the sorceress gave up her magic immortality.”

“So why didn't the queen just give up her immortality?” I asked.

“Zat is a story for anozer night,” Aunt Perrine said.

Alex grimaced. “That's a terrible story.”

“Not all stories 'ave 'appy endings.”

“Well I don't like it,” Alex said.

“I vill tell you one with a 'appy ending tomorrow,” Aunt Perrine promised, and she kissed Alex's head.

I looked out the window and thought about Eleanor and wondered if she had been a princess. I wondered if all the fairytales were true. If dragons hadn't once tricked silly kings and if princesses hadn't once been lost to the dragons' terrible jaws.

The banging started in the middle of the night again. I woke up and found Alex sitting apprehensively on the edge of my bed. He was looking at me with wide, horrified eyes.

“If Eleanor is a ghost and she's real,” he whispered, “then why can't there really be something horrible in the attic?”

There were tears in his eyes and I scooted over and made room for him in bed with me.

“You can stay here, but you have to go to sleep,” I demanded. Alex crawled in next to me and closed his eyes.

But we couldn't sleep. The banging upstairs turned into rattling and then into yelling. Alex and I could only lay on the bed watching the ceiling and wondering what hideous creature was going to come stumbling down the stairs to eat us.

“I wish Dad was here,” Alex said.

“Me too.”

There was another thud and then more commotion. This time they were speaking in English. I could almost hear them. I heard someone shout, “Bed,” and then someone say something that sounded like, “Be quiet.”

Bang. Bang. Bang. Someone stomped down the stairs and then someone even bigger followed them. Alex scooted closer to me in the bed. I could feel his tension. I put my hand in his. I could almost hear his heart pounding over the sound of his ragged breath.

Thud. They were right outside the door. Crack. They were breaking things. I sat up.

“I forgot to lock the door!” Alex whimpered.

I looked at the doorknob in terror. I was too afraid to get up. Alex looked at me with pleading eyes so I summoned all the courage in my body and rose to my feet.

Thud. Something banged right into the door, making the door shake. There were voices. I could hear what they were saying.

“I told you not to touch my stuff,” someone said.

“I didn't touch anything,” the other voice complained.

“Yeah. Well then who moved my book?”

“I wouldn't touch your ridiculous book.”

There was another bang and then a muffled yell and I pushed my ear against the door straining to hear what they were saying.

“They sound like kids,” I said. “They sound like us.”

“What?” Alex asked.

“They don't sound like monsters. They're fighting like we do.”

“So? Monsters can fight.”

“Yeah. But not like this. What if they're kid ghosts, like Eleanor?”

“Eleanor wouldn't make that much racket.”

“I'm gonna look outside.”

“Don't you dare! Just lock the door!”

“I don't think they're monsters.”

“No!”

I opened the door and looked out into the dimly lit hallway. I couldn't see much, the chair, some old paintings. Bang. Two figures fell onto the floor fighting. One of them was nothing but bones and a grimacing skull and the other had sharp teeth and gleaming red eyes.

“Ahhhhh!” I screamed

“Ahhhhh!” Alex screamed.

“Ahhhhh!” The monsters screamed.

The red-eyed beast stood up and tried to run backwards, falling down the stairs. The skeleton stood up, but his head fell off. He grabbed it awkwardly and ran towards us with his skull in his hands.

I think Alex panicked, because when he started to run he ran towards the skeleton instead of away from it and the two collided in the middle of the hall. Alex began to dash down the stairs, but the skeleton's skull became caught on the drawstring of Alex's pants so the two ran together screaming down the rest of the stairs, leaving the skeleton's body bumping into things in the hall.

I stopped screaming and chased after my brother, who was jumping up and down and screaming in the kitchen.

“Get it off me! Get it off me! Get it off me!” he yelled as he jumped up and down.

“Ahhhhh!” the skeleton continued to scream.

I yanked the skull off Alex's pants, screaming when the skeleton looked at me with its black eyes.

“Put it in the oven!” Alex yelled. He opened the door and I threw the skull in the oven.

I wiped my hands on my pants and hopped around. “What was that?”

Alex turned all the knobs on the oven. “I don't know!”

We both stared at the oven wide eyed and stunned, just when we thought we had won, the red-eyed creature ran in the room. The monster was tall and thin with a white face and long shinning teeth. It pushed Alex aside and opened the oven, retrieving the skeleton head. The skull was screaming and it must have been hot because the other monster juggled it like a hot potato before he dropped it on the floor.

“What did you do that for?” demanded the monster. He stared at us.

Stunned, I answered him. “He was a skeleton.”

The monster picked up the skull with a dishtowel decorated with pictures of kittens, which had been hanging by the sink. He held the skull like a baby and patted it. The skeleton only scowled at him.

“I'm not a baby. Stop that and put me back on my body!” the skeleton shouted.

“Don't shout at me! This is your fault!”

“How is it my fault? You pushed me down the stairs!”

“Well you woke the kids up with all your yelling,” the monster answered.

“You are always messing with my stuff,” the skeleton retorted.

“If you feel that way, I'll just put you right back in the oven.”

The monster opened the oven door and the skeleton, or skull, or head, wailed in dismay. “Fine. It's my fault. Just put me back on my body.”

“Not until you say you are sorry.”

“I'm sorry.”

“What's wrong with you two?” I bellowed.

Both monsters stopped their fighting and looked at Alex and me. Alex kicked me in the back of the leg and I flinched.

“What did you do that for?” he hissed.

“They're driving me crazy,” I hissed back.

The toilet in the other room flushed and all four of us turned to look at the door into the living room. A light came on, a door slammed and the two monsters looked mortified.

“Listen,” the monster explained. “Don't tell on us, OK?”

“Tell on you?” I asked in disbelief.

“Don't tell Lady Perrine how much noise we were making. In fact, please don't tell her we're here,” the skull pleaded.

The monster looked around and slid under the table clutching the skull to his chest like a football. The kitchen light flickered on and Aunt Perrine came into the kitchen in her hot pink, knitted robe. She looked like she was still half asleep and she yawned conspicuously as she entered the kitchen.

“What're you two doing up?” She asked. “It's 4 am.”

For a moment, both Alex and I looked around like idiots
and then Alex opened his mouth and found something to say. “I was thirsty.”

“Why is ze oven open?” Aunt Perrin asked.

“We were hungry too,” I said.

I could see the monsters under the table and all I could think was that if those two were that bad at hiding, why did it take us two days to find them? The monsters' feet were sticking out and if Aunt Perrine even looked down it would be obvious they were there. But Aunt Perrine didn't look down. She shuffled over to the oven and closed the door. “If you are 'ungry, you should 'ave a cookie. Don't cook. It iz dangerous to in ze middle of ze night.”

She shuffled away leaving Alex and I staring stupidly at the monsters under the table. The monster stood up and smiled at me. I wasn't sure what to think. It looked more like a grimace than a smile and he had about a hundred razor sharp teeth.

“Thanks,” he said.

“Anytime,” I answered.

“I'm Uno and this is Roger, but I call him Jolly Roger.” He laughed.

“Shut up,” the skull complained. “My name is just Roger.”

“Just Jolly Roger,” the monster taunted.

“You two live here?” I asked.

“Yeah. We live here,” the skull answered. “Not always, but we have for a while.”

“Where'd you live before?” Alex queried.

“Here and there,” the skull replied. “I used to live in America. Some stupid teenagers dug me up and tried to cast some lame spell to bring me back to life and here I am. Alive…kind of. They ran away and left me.”

“That stinks,” I said.

“Yeah.”

“I'm a vampire,” Uno said. “I'm from New York. I used to have a family, parents, a house, and then some jerk bit me and now I glow in the dark.”

“What a jerk,” I said.

There was an uncomfortable silence as we all stared at each other. I really had no idea what to think or say.

“So, you just live up in the attic and fight all night now and drink diet blood?” Alex asked.

“Sometimes we go out,” Uno explained.

“We do stuff,” Roger added. “Sometimes we help Lady Perrine. Sometimes we go see the other folk around here.”

Alex scratched his head. “Like who? Eleanor?”

The skull scrunched up his face in something that looked like anger, although I had trouble telling because of his bony features. “Yeah.”

“How'd you get here?”

“Lady Perrine saved us,” Roger said.

I studied Roger. “From who?”

“The slayers. You know, those guys that go around trying to kill monsters, ghosts, and magic folk.”

I raised my eyebrows. “People do that?”

Roger nodded emphatically. “Yeah, but it's safe here.”

There was another silence and then Uno smiled and moved towards the stairs. “Well,” he said. “Nice meeting you. I should probably go put Roger together again. Goodnight.”

Uno tripped a little as he walked and as soon as they vanished up the stairs, they started fighting again. For a while, Alex just watched the space where the two monsters had been and then we looked at each other and started laughing.

I laughed. “I can't believe we were afraid of that!”

We laughed all the way upstairs. I fell asleep with a grin on my face and for the first time in a very long time, I
honestly couldn't wait for morning.

Alex was up long before me. I could hear him upstairs in the loft talking to Roger. It was hot and I had sweated through my pajamas in the night. There was no air conditioning and summer had been mild, but the weather changed. I peeled off my pajamas and threw on a t-shirt and shorts.

It was early and I stumbled up into the loft. Alex and Roger were lying on the floor playing a game of Checkers. Uno was resting on the bed reading a book. It was a strange scene – a skeleton and a little boy playing checkers. It could have been a picture from summer camp, if it hadn't have been for the horrible monsters.

“What're you doing?” I asked.

“Roger's gonna show me where we can going swimming today,” Alex said.

“OK. Do you swim a lot Roger?” I was half astonished and half just being polite.

“Not in a while. Mr. Vampire there doesn't do well in the sun and I don't like going alone.”

I looked at Alex. “I thought we were going to see Eleanor today?”

Uno looked surprised. “You met Eleanor?”

“Yeah,” I answered.

Roger rolled on his back and laughed.

“What's so funny?” Uno demanded.

“Uno has a crush on Eleanor, but she won't give him the time of
day
. Get it. Time of
day.”
Roger laughed again.

Uno frowned. “I do not,”

“How old are you guys?” I asked.

“I don't know,” Roger replied. “It's hard for me to keep count. I was ten when I died. I don't keep count anymore.”

“Oh,” I said. “I'm sorry.”

Roger shrugged. “You get used to it after a while. Aunt
Perrine makes us cake to celebrate the first day we came here.”

I thought for a minute. “Can you eat?”

Roger was quick to answer. “Kind of.”

“It's disgusting,” Uno said. “It falls out of his ribs, but he just keeps on eating.”

“At least I can eat. Uno gets blood cake for his special days. It looks like raw meat.”

“It is pretty vile,” Uno admitted with a shrug. “I love it though.”

“So what are we doing today?” Alex interrupted.

“We haven't decided,” I said. “We were going to go swimming or perhaps to see Eleanor.”

“Why can't we do both?” Alex asked. “I mean, I had a question for Eleanor too.”

“Let's see Eleanor first,” I suggested.

“I'm going too,” Uno said.

“You'll burn up,” Roger said.

“I'll wear my cloak.”

“You'll look stupid, Uno.”

“You look stupid all the time.”

“Just shut up and get ready,” I said. “I'm going to eat breakfast. I'll meet you all by the keep in an hour.”

With that, I ran down stairs to find Aunt Perrine. Aunt Perrine was in the kitchen, as always, drinking coffee and humming to herself. She had shed her usual sweaters and was wearing a t-shirt with pink flowers and kittens on it. She wore her hair down and it spilled over her shoulders in long, gray curls.