The Monsters of Morley Manor (7 page)

Sarah looked at me nervously, and I could tell she was wondering what it would be like to have a brother like that.

“Why are you telling us this now?” asked Gaspar.

“I have only recently worked it all out myself,” said the Wentar. “Also, I am concerned because the Flinduvians have called the clone home.”

“Called him home,” I repeated. “Does that mean that Old Man . . . er, Mr. Morley didn't actually die a few months back?”

“Precisely,” said the Wentar. “The Flinduvians sent yet another clone—an empty one, this time; just a well-aged body with nothing in it—and used it to replace the first clone. Now we must try to find the real Martin.”

“To save him?” asked Gaspar eagerly, his long, lizardy tongue flicking in and out of his snout.

“Saving Martin would be nice,” said the Wentar. “Certainly it would help ease my conscience. However, the main thing I need to do right now is find out what the Flinduvians are up to, and I think there is a good chance I can do that by tapping Martin's brain.”

“But why did they send a clone of him here to begin with?” I asked. “What were they after?”

“I should think
that
much would be obvious,” replied the Wentar. “They want to take over your planet.”

8

“W
HY WOULD THE
F
LINDUVIANS
want to take over Earth?” I cried. (I suppose that wasn't a particularly sensible question. It just popped out.)

“The other Wentars and I have often asked our selves the same thing,” replied the purple-eyed alien. “Considering the mess you people have made of this place, it's hard to imagine why anyone would want it. Of course, the planet's basic structure is still sound; lots of water and so on. But everyone in the galaxy knows how much work it would take to clean up your world enough to make it suitable for civilized life. So there must be something else. We have some theories, but we still—”

Before he could finish the sentence, he spun as if he had heard something behind him—though what it was I couldn't have said, since I heard nothing but the rain pounding against the windows. When he turned back, his eyes were wide. I wasn't sure it was a look of fear (with an alien, who can tell?) until he whispered, “Quickly! Follow me! The Flinduvians are coming.”

The urgency in his voice made it clear: He was terrified—which didn't do anything to calm
me
down, let me tell you.

I glanced at Gaspar to see if he was going to do as the Wentar said.

He was already heading for the door.

“What about the children?” he asked.

“They'll have to come with us,” said the Wentar. “We'll try to bring them back later.
Hurry!
”

Sarah grabbed my hand. Normally, I wouldn't have put up with that, but this was not a normal situation. It didn't make any difference. My fingers had barely closed over hers when I felt her hand being yanked out of mine.

“Sarah!” I cried, terrified that the aliens had snatched her. Then I saw what had really happened: Albert had picked her up and thrown her over his shoulder—the one without the hump. Moving amazingly fast, he scuttled out the door after the Wentar.

Bob the werehuman was close on their heels.

“Hurry, Anthony!” said Ludmilla, just before she turned into a bat and flew after them.

Melisande took my hand. “Sssstay with meeee!” hissed her snakes.

I did just that. Weird as she was, it was better than being alone. The two of us scurried into the hall. We hadn't gone more than twenty or thirty feet when I felt a jolt that reminded me of the time I accidentally touched the electric fence at Gramma and Grampa Walker's farm with my head. Except this time was both less painful and about twenty times more powerful.

“What was that?” I cried.

No one answered. I had a feeling I knew what it meant, anyway. We had crossed some line—a line like the one we had crossed when we first entered the hallway.

Now we were somewhere else.

But
where
?

We kept running. I heard a shout behind us. When I looked over my shoulder, I was so startled that I stumbled and would have fallen if Melisande had not pulled me back to my feet.

Though the corridor stretched behind us, it didn't go all the way back to the stairs, or even back to the place we had stepped through when the bookshelf had lifted out of the way. Instead, it ended at a shimmering wall of black. I figured that must mark the place we had passed when I felt that weird jolt.

Now, to my horror, that black wall began to bulge. Something from the other side was slamming against it. I could hear angry shouts. The blackness seemed to be stretching, getting
thinner
.

Melisande yanked me forward.

“Don't sssstop!” hissed the snakes on her head.

And then we were there. The Starry Door.

There was no mistaking it. It was as black as the wall behind us, as if we were in some sort of long capsule, with a black wall at each end. But unlike the wall we had already come through, which was solid black, this wall was marked with a circle of stars that pulsed with silver light. The Wentar paused, glanced behind us. I heard a shout and turned to look, too.

The wall behind us had been sliced to tatters by thick, glittering claws. But the tatters themselves still had power, because the creature on the other side was struggling with them, trying to get through. I caught a glimpse of a face—large eyes and a bulging purple snout, with big fangs thrusting up from its lower jaw—that was both fierce and frightening.

The creature let out a cry of rage that seemed to scrape along my soul.

“Hurry!” cried Gaspar. “Hurry!”

The Wentar ran his fingers over the circle of stars, touching them in an order I couldn't make out. With a musical shimmer, the door opened, revealing a great black void sprinkled with stars. I expected to be sucked through, destroyed instantly. But as if the stars themselves were only an image on a curtain, the Wentar reached forward and touched one.

“I want to go
there
,” he said, speaking to the door. Then he turned to us and said, “Follow me.”

He stepped forward. The black void rippled and seemed to swallow him.

Gaspar followed at his heels. Ludmilla went next; fluttering after her brother, she disappeared into the darkness. Then Albert stepped through, with Sarah still flung over his shoulder.

“Wait!” I cried.

It was too late; they were gone.

I glanced behind me. The creature I had seen before was pushing its way through the tattered black ribbons that were all that remained of the barrier. Though they clung to him and tried to hold him back, it was clear he would be free of them in seconds. Behind him were more of his kind, growling and snorting.

Then the monster locked eyes with me. I felt a coldness, and a strange glimpse of terror to come. I stood, frozen, like some helpless prey in the eyes of a great hunting beast.

“We musssst go!” cried Melisande, yanking my hand.

The spell was broken. Turning, I followed her through the Starry Door.

 

I
FELT AS IF
I were being stung by a thousand bees and kissed by a thousand butterflies, all at the same time.

My body was still tingling when I realized I was standing in a green field dotted with little red flowers. The moment of comfort I felt when I saw this didn't last very long. Though the field was green, what grew on it was not like any grass I had ever seen. It looked more like a lawn of two-inch-high broccoli. It was the same with the flowers: Though clearly
like
flowers in general, they were just as clearly unlike any flowers I had ever actually seen. (And as the son of two florists, I've seen more than my share of flowers.) The stiff red petals that radiated out from the bumpy centers had a metallic look. I reached down to touch one, then cried out in pain. The edge was so sharp it had cut me, almost like a paper cut.

Putting my bleeding finger in my mouth, I looked up. The sky was as purple as wild irises.

“Anthony” said Sarah uneasily, “we're not in Nebraska anymore, are we?”

“Nor are ve in Zentarazna,” said Ludmilla, who had turned back to her human form. She sounded as nervous as I felt—which made
me
even more nervous than I had been to begin with. “Just vere
haf
you brought us, Ventar?”

“To a place where we may be safe—and where we may be able to gather some information.”

“What about those . . . things?” I asked.

“We are safe from them for now. They cannot follow through the Starry Door. That is the law of magic”

“Good law,” said Albert.

The Wentar didn't answer. Instead, he began turning in a slow circle. He was making an odd humming noise in his throat. The noise might have been nervousness. It might have been some secret call. Maybe he was just singing.

As I said, with an alien, who can tell?

Halfway into his second circle, he paused, then pointed. “This way,” he said. “Quickly!”

He began striding off across the field. The rest of us followed.

What else could we do?

The grassy stuff felt sproingy under my feet, and I almost bounced as I walked. It made a wonderful sound, too—a humming not unlike the sound the Wentar had been making. The air was clean and crisp, so sweet to breathe that I couldn't help remembering the Wentar's words about the mess we had made on Earth. I wondered what our own air was supposed to smell like.

After about fifteen minutes, we crested a hill. I could see an enormous lake ahead of us, its blue green surface rippled by gentle waves. As we ambled down the slope toward the sandy shore, something rose up out of the water.

I came to a dead stop.

Sarah grabbed my arm.

“What the heck is
that?
” she cried.

9

T
HE CREATURE
that stood dripping at the edge of the water was about four feet high. Even though it had arms and walked upright, it looked sort of like a cross between a frog and a fish. A spiny crest ran from its head to its butt. Huge, goggling eyes were set above a mouth so wide that I figured if the thing yawned the top of its head would fall off. It had gills, but no scales. Its skin, which glistened in the sunlight, looked like mottled purple leather with a light coating of slime.

I probably should have been more scared than I was. Maybe what kept me from totally wigging out is the fact that I like frogs so much. We have a lot of them around Owl's Roost, and I like to catch them and “hypnotize” them. (It's a trick I learned from a library book. If you turn a frog upside down and slowly rub your fingertip from its throat down along its belly over and over again, pretty soon it will get totally calm and just lie there in your hand, unable to move. It's really cool, but you have to be very gentle when you do it.)

The waterguy held up a webbed hand, then made a series of croaks that sounded like a whole frog orchestra—everything from the tiny trills of spring peepers to something like the rumble of a bullfrog, only much, much deeper.

The Wentar put his hands on the sides of his own neck for a moment, then made a series of similar sounds.

Given the fact that I can barely pass my French tests, I found this very impressive.

The waterguy responded with another froggy chorus.

“What did he say?” asked Gaspar.

“His name is Chug-rug-lalla-apsa-lalla-rugum-bupbup,” replied the Wentar, the words coming from deep in his throat. “But you can call him Chuck.”

“That's a relief,” muttered Albert.

The Wentar glared at him. “Chuck welcomes us, as long as we guarantee that we come in peace.”

“A welcome is all very nice,” said Gaspar impatiently. “The question is, will he
help
this band of poor lost wanderers?”

“That is what I am trying to find out,” snapped the Wentar. “Perhaps if you stop interrupting me, I will be able to get an answer.”

Gaspar clamped his mouth shut and demonstrated what a lizard looks like when it feels both embarrassed and angry.

The Wentar and the waterguy talked for another minute or so, sounding like a chorus of swamp creatures on a warm spring night. Finally the Wentar turned to the rest of us and said, “Lie on your backs.”

Gaspar looked suspicious. “For what reason?”

The Wentar sighed. “I have to do something, and it will be easier if you are all lying down—preferably in a circle, with your heads at the center.”

Gaspar tightened his jaws, then nodded twice—once at the Wentar, once at the rest of us, indicating we should do as he said. It took a while. Albert couldn't get comfortable, because of his hump. And Bob whined and growled, causing Gaspar to admit that they had never managed to train him very well. For me, the worst of it was the snakes on Melisande's head, which wouldn't hold still. I had just settled in to my spot when one of them came slithering across my neck, causing me to scream and leap to my feet.

“What now?” asked the Wentar angrily.

“Snake!” I gasped, clutching at my neck. “It was crawling over me.”

Melisande looked offended, and her snakes all hissed, “He wassssn't going to hurt you. He wassss jusssst checking you out.”

Gaspar's tongue, long as a snake itself, flicked in and out of his mouth. “Lie back down,” he ordered. “Melisande, keep the boys under control.”

She glared at him, but nodded.

“Glad it wasn't me,” whispered Sarah when I was on my back again.

“I wish it had been,” I said. That was only partly true. I actually kind of like snakes. Sarah hates them, and if one had crawled over
her
neck, it might have taken hours for us to get her settled down again.

The Wentar began to walk around us, muttering in a low voice. He took something from the leather pouch at his side, and sprinkled it over our heads. Then Chug-rug-lalla-apsa-lalla-rugum-bupbup splashed water on us.