Darkling Green Read online

  for Lizzie (my April Fool)

  Table of Contents

  Cast of Characters

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Cast of Characters

  Willa Fuller — Twelve years old, or to be specific, almost, almost thirteen. An “ordinary” girl who discovered this extraordinary house quite by chance. Clever, brave, and responsible. Has recently discovered mental powers she never knew she had: she can communicate telepathically and sense other people’s emotions.

  Willa’s Family

  Belle (full name: Mirabelle) — Cranky old mermaid in a wheelchair. Self-centred and blunt. Willa recently learned that Belle is her long-lost grandmother. Long ago, Belle assumed human form to marry a handsome fisherman. She grew dissatisfied with life on land and returned to the ocean, abandoning her husband and young daughter, Maris.

  Grandpa (George Godwin) — Willa’s grandfather, a fisherman who singlehandedly raised Willa’s mother after Belle left. Jovial and full of life. Also gentle, kind, and forgiving. Doesn’t like to dredge up the past.

  Maris Fuller (née Godwin) — Willa’s mom. A bit of a control freak, stern and strict. Dearly loves her family, with the exception of Belle, against whom she holds a gigantic grudge, even after all these years. She’s got her own secrets, and she keeps them well.

  Marvin Fuller — Willa’s dad. Shy and retiring. There’s no drama in his past, and he’d rather avoid the drama in his wife’s family altogether, thank you very much.

  Inhabitants of Eldritch Manor

  Baz — Short, stout old lady who loves to take catnaps. Her past is a mystery, but it has become apparent that she is more cat than human, despite her appearance. Has a special interest in charms and magic.

  Horace — A bookish and mild-mannered old gentleman. Thousands of years old. Prefers birthday cakes without the candles, for fire safety reasons. He also happens to be an androsphinx. This means he is able to assume the form of a lion, though he prefers his boring human shape. Recently, his memory has begun to fail him, with nearly disastrous results.

  Tengu — An elderly, pint-sized martial arts master with a very big heart. Human in form, his age is advanced but indeterminate. Always cheerful and full of childlike enthusiasm. Has an unhealthy obsession with lethal weaponry.

  Mab — Queen of the fairies. Keeper of dreams, mistress of enchantments, Mab is a dainty spitfire and imperious ruler of all the fairies of the backyard. She is combative and stubborn, and her past is about to catch up with her.

  Sarah — A young, lively fairy, Sarah is the plucky personal assistant to Mab. When she began this job she was devoted and dutiful, but over time has become less impressed with her royal taskmaster. Not the greatest knitter around.

  Robert — Irascible old fellow with a quick temper. He is a centaur, human from the waist up, with the body and legs of a horse. Cannot change shape, which makes it pretty difficult for him to blend into a crowd.

  Miss Trang — Stern middle-aged lady who is supposed to be caretaker-manager of Eldritch Manor, though Willa is left in charge whenever she wanders off. Miss Trang occasionally turns into a massive fire-breathing dragon.

  Roshni — A phoenix, descendent of an ancient line. A bird of prey, she is the size of a large hawk and has recently been living in the wild. Quietly devoted to Willa.

  The dwarves — Nine capable workmen hired by Miss Trang to rebuild Eldritch Manor. Though sometimes inscrutable, the dwarves have hearts of gold and are artists and engineers of incredible skill. Mjodvitnir is the leader, Fjalarr his right-hand dwarf. The others are Radsvidr, Vindálfr, Svíurr, Aurvangr, Dólgthrasir, Hlévangr, and Eikinskjaldi.

  Chapter One

  In which everyone is surprisingly cheerful

  “It’s a good time to be Zen,” observed Tengu one crisp November day as he flung razor-sharp ninja stars into the stable wall. THWACK! THWACK! THWACK!

  “Absolutely.” Willa stood under a tree, holding a shoebox as the little fairy Sarah flitted back and forth from a hole in the trunk, bringing out Mab’s belongings and packing them in the box. The fairy queen herself was reclining on a branch nearby, looking bored.

  “Meditation and solitude,” continued Tengu, prying the stars out of the wood. “My inner peace has been seriously disrupted by recent events.”

  Willa nodded. It was now two weeks since the terrific battle of Hallowe’en night, and things had finally settled back to normal around town. Rumours of a fierce lion roaming Hanlan’s Park had died down, and even Mr. Hacker had decided it must have been some kind of trick-or-treat prank. And if anyone had managed to catch a glimpse through the fog of an immense bird with massive claws and the back legs of a lion battling a fire-breathing dragon … well, they weren’t talking. It was all over now, and Willa was ready for a blissfully uneventful winter.

  Tengu continued pitching ninja stars into the wall. THWACK! THWACK! THWACK!

  “How exactly does that help your ‘inner peace’?” asked Willa with a smile.

  The old man looked at her in surprise. “I derive much joy and satisfaction from handling weapons. Don’t you?”

  “Not really,” answered Willa as Sarah dropped a load of clothing into the box.

  Mab sat up suddenly. “Roll the scarves or they’ll wrinkle!”

  “Yes, Your Royal Weariness,” Sarah sighed.

  “What was that?” Mab snapped.

  “Royal Fairyness. I said, ‘Yes, Your Royal Fairyness.” Sarah winked at Willa as she pulled filmy bits of spiderweb scarf from the shoebox and rolled them up. Willa hastened to change the topic.

  “Are you sure you want to move into the house, Mab? The other fairies are staying out here in the woods.”

  Mab sniffed. “Trees are summer homes. I am far too delicate to stay out here in the cold.”

  “But we don’t have a dollhouse for you yet.”

  “Mimsy and Cowslip found a home for me,” answered Mab, perking up. “It’s a little rustic but highly portable. I can hang it anywhere I like. Here it is now.”

  Willa turned to see four fairies fly up carrying a dusty grey ball between them.

  “A wasp nest? Is it … empty?”

  Mab smiled. “The wasps were persuaded to find other accommodations. Don’t you love the design? Very modern. Just like the Guggenheim.”

  The fairies brought it closer, and Willa gingerly put her eye to the round hole that served as a door. The inside had been emptied out, leaving a simple, papery orb with walls thin enough for the light to glow through. “Very nice,” she admitted.

  Just then Robert came trotting through the trees. “The dwarves a
re ready,” he announced. “It is time for the unveiling of the first floor!”

  Sarah flew out with a final armful of tiny shoes and dumped them into the box. “That’s everything!”

  Willa shut the lid as Sarah and Mab flitted off, accompanied by the fairies with the wasp nest. Willa followed slowly, enjoying the crackle of leaves under her feet and the autumn sunshine slanting through the trees. Everything was quiet and still.

  Willa rounded the house and joined the others in the front yard. She was glad the tall construction fence hid them from the street, because they were certainly a bizarre-looking group. Robert the centaur clip-clopped around with pint-sized Tengu at his side, hopping up and down with excitement. Horace stood behind Belle in her wheelchair, her mermaid tail glistening in the sunshine. Baz, stout and grey-haired, was lying in the grass, watching everyone through half-closed eyes. Fairies buzzed around in the sunshine, their wings a fuzzy blur.

  “Is everyone here?” Robert looked around. “Where’s Miss Trang?”

  Just then she appeared, approaching from the other side of the house. Miss Trang was moving very slowly these days, almost like she was underwater. Willa shook her head. It didn’t look right at all.

  “Is she okay?” she whispered to Belle.

  “Yes, yes. She gets like this every winter. Dragons don’t like the cold, you know,” Belle answered.

  “But most of the time she’s human.”

  “Doesn’t matter. Inside she’s a cold-blooded reptile,” Belle remarked, then added hastily, “I mean that in the best way possible, of course.”

  Everyone waited as she approached. And waited. Leaves floated down around them. Baz began to snore. At last Miss Trang reached the front walk. “What are you waiting for? Let’s go in,” she said with a yawn.

  “Come on, Baz, time to wake up!” Tengu grasped Baz’s hands and tried to haul her to her feet, but she went limp and slithered out of his hands to the ground.

  “Baz! If you can’t stand up, someone else will get your room, and you’ll be sleeping outside this winter!” snapped Belle.

  Baz opened her eyes and sullenly raised her wrists. Tengu grabbed them, stepped on her feet, and pulled her upright. Willa smiled and gazed around at the odd group of friends. Her friends. She felt a sudden, intense fondness for them all. The feeling grew in her chest until she could hardly breathe.

  “Look!” Tengu pointed. A large bird circled down toward them, landing lightly on the gatepost. Its feathers glinted in the sunshine.

  “Hello, Roshni,” said Willa.

  “Splendid! The phoenix has come back to us,” said Horace. “I’m sure there’s room for her here. In our home.” Everyone fell to chattering excitedly about Eldritch Manor. Willa gazed up at the house.

  From the smoking ruin of three months ago, progress had certainly been made. The walls of the first floor were complete, and above that white posts rose in a skeletal description of the second storey to come. The basic beams of the place were growing up out of the ground on their own; the dwarf construction crew was merely filling in the gaps between them. There was still a lot to be done, but with the cold weather coming, Willa was glad that at least the main floor was ready for residents to move in. Robert’s room in the basement had been finished first, so Horace, Tengu, and Belle had crowded in there with him for the last two weeks. They curtained off a private corner for Belle, which was awkward, but Belle had stoutly refused to return to Willa’s house, since she and Willa’s mom were still not speaking. Baz was here, there, and everywhere, a portly old dame roaming the back alleys with her ragtag gang of neighbourhood cats. Miss Trang, well, nobody knew exactly where she’d been staying. She kept largely to herself, though now she was slowing down so much that it would be good to get her safely inside. The dwarves had promised rooms on the first floor for Horace, Tengu, Belle, Baz, and Miss Trang, though as Willa looked at the structure, she wasn’t sure how all of them could fit in there.

  “Right. Let’s get started.” Robert smoothed down what was left of his white hair before clopping awkwardly up the front steps and onto the porch. The heavy wooden door featured an ornate knocker, which Robert now struck loudly.

  He stepped back as the door swung open. Nine dwarves solemnly marched out, lining the porch. Willa thought they’d spruced themselves up a bit. At the very least they had washed their hands and wiped their grimy faces. A couple even wore bowties atop their ancient leather work aprons.

  Last to exit was their leader, Mjodvitnir, who bowed low and intoned, “I, Mjodvitnir, son of Vestri, descendent of a long line of dwarf craftsmen and artists, am proud to present Eldritch Manor, Phase Two.”

  He turned and led the way inside as everyone crowded up the steps to the door. Willa put Mab’s shoebox into Belle’s lap, took the handles of the wheelchair, and pushed her around to the new ramp at the side of the porch. They entered the house just before Robert, who took up the rear.

  It was dark inside after the bright sunshine, and Willa walked right into a chandelier, a mass of dangling glass prisms hanging at eye-level. Edging her way around it, Willa saw that the front hall was wide and spacious, but with a very low ceiling.

  “Um, isn’t the chandelier a little big?” she hazarded to Fjalarr, one of the dwarves. He smiled and shook his head.

  “The house will grow into it. You’ll see.” He then strode to the middle of the hall.

  “Ahem! Ladies, gentlemen, Little Folk. I welcome you to the opening of this, the next phase of Project Eldritch Manor. To your left you’ll find the parlour, featuring Tournesol Windows with cutting-edge sunbeam-bending technology! Sunlight streams in all day!” This elicited oohs and aahs from the company. Fjalarr continued. “The parlour opens into the dining room, and beyond that is the kitchen, which is still out of bounds. Bit of a work-in-progress mess, if you know what I mean….”

  Then the dwarf gestured to the floor of the front hall. Willa noticed there was a large square cut into the floorboards.

  “At your feet, convenient basement access.” Fjalarr put his hand on an intricately carved dragon topping the bannister post at the foot of the stairs. He flicked open the dragon’s mouth, and with a quiet rumble one end of the trapdoor began to lower. Everyone jumped back as it descended and came to rest, forming a ramp to the basement. Robert’s eyes lit up.

  “Wonderful! May I?”

  Fjalarr nodded, and Robert stepped forward, experimentally clopping down the ramp and back up again. Then he flipped the dragon’s mouth shut. The ramp rose and clicked back into place.

  Robert grinned with delight. “Brilliant!”

  Next Fjalarr turned and swept his arm grandly to the other side of the hall. “On your right you will find what you’ve really been waiting for. Your rooms will eventually be located on the second and third floors, but we have arranged temporary quarters for you down here. They’re a little unusual, but I trust they will serve.”

  There was silence as those assembled viewed the five doors. They were right smack beside each other, with no space between them at all.

  “How large are these rooms?” queried Belle. “They don’t look big enough to swing a cat in.”

  Baz narrowed her eyes and hissed. “Just a figure of speech, dearie,” Belle added quickly.

  “Their size shifts as required,” explained Fjalarr. “Go in, and you’ll see what I mean.”

  Each wooden door had a small carving in the centre: a lion’s head, a cat, a winged dragon, a mermaid, and finally an emblem with crossed daggers.

  “That one’s mine!” chortled Tengu. He hopped forward and swung the door open. The room was simply furnished, with a bed, dresser, and bookshelf, and as Fjalarr had said, it was a normal-sized room.

  Belle’s door was right next to Tengu’s, and she protested immediately. “If his room is that big, mine must be a shoebox!”

  She pushed her door open, but the room within wa
s the same size as Tengu’s. Horace, Baz, and Miss Trang opened their doors, and they too were faced with equally large rooms. Willa gazed from one doorway to the next. She couldn’t make the spaces add up in her mind. They should overlap, shouldn’t they?

  “It’s a clever new method of building temporary portable rooms. The only downside is that they can be a little, er … shifty,” admitted Fjalarr.

  The residents discovered what he meant when they woke the next morning to find the walls had crept right up to the sides of their beds. The walls retreated when they got out of bed. Tengu discovered that if he jogged in circles, he could make his room expand to the size of a gym. Baz’s room, on the other hand, was usually broom closet–sized, since she never slept there. She preferred the sofa in the parlour, where she could be found snoozing at all hours.

  Belle, 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.