House of Secrets

“What a freak,” Brendan said, rejoining them. Dr Walker sighed at the futility of sending his son to his room. “I bet she isn’t even sick. And you better throw that pie away. Definite anthrax alert.”

“For once, Bren, I agree with you,” said Dr Walker, dumping the pie in the trash.

“Hold on!” said Cordelia. “You guys aren’t being fair. She could just be senile. She’s obviously not really Kristoff’s daughter. He built this house in… Bren?”

Her brother thought for a moment. “1907.”

“Right, so what is she, a hundred?”

“If she was born here, she could be as old as a hundred and six. And you should see how she looks before she takes a shower. And gets teeth-whitening strips.” Brendan was wondering how he would sleep tonight. Forget the lacrosse stick – he needed a flamethrower.

“She was a little creepy,” Mrs Walker said. “I don’t like the idea that she used to live here.”

“Don’t worry, it’ll sort itself out.” Dr Walker put an arm around his wife. “Let’s just be thankful that the move is over and get dinner.” He kissed Mrs Walker on the cheek.

“Who wants to try our new pizza place?” Mrs Walker asked. “It’s called Pino’s.” She was already looking at her phone. “It’s supposed to be delicious.”

“I’m going upstairs,” Cordelia said – and then, in a whisper to Brendan, “to find out a little more about Dahlia Kristoff.”

“I’ll come with you,” Brendan whispered back, surprised at his sudden urge to work with his sister.

“No, you’ve got to talk your way out of being grounded,” Cordelia said, leaving Brendan… who looked up to see his parents standing over him, ready to have a long talk with him about threatening people with weapons.

Upstairs, Cordelia took down a picture from the wall: the faded image of the elderly woman, who Diane Dobson had said was Kristoff’s mother, holding a baby. She went to her room, got a nail file, and came back to the hallway. She used the nail file to open the frame, moving very slowly and carefully. Finally she got the picture free. On the back of it, perhaps in Denver Kristoff’s own handwriting, it said: Helen K w/Dahlia K, Mother’s 70th, Alamo Square, 1908.

Cordelia flipped the picture over to look at the baby: the infant Dahlia Kristoff. Her eyes had the same steely intensity—

“Cordelia!”

She nearly jumped out of her skin. It was her mother from downstairs. “Pizza’s here!”

Cordelia shimmied the picture back into the frame, which was a very painstaking process that left her pizza downstairs almost cold by the time she got to it. She found her family on the living-room floor, digging into a pepperoni pizza without plates, pouring cups of soda for one another. Dr Walker had hooked up the TV and ordered an on-demand movie: the Marx Brothers’ Duck Soup.

“The Marx Brothers? Again? We always watch the Marx Brothers!” argued Eleanor. “Can’t we watch something in colour? Where the people are still alive?”

“It’s a family tradition,” said Dr Walker. And he was right. Whenever the family had something to celebrate, they’d order up a Marx Brothers classic. The opening credits for Duck Soup began to roll.

“What’d you find?” Brendan whispered to Cordelia.

“Dahlia Kristoff is in one of the pictures upstairs. And if that picture is dated correctly, she’s a hundred and five years old.”

“Did you see her hands in the picture?”

“Yes, why?”

“Because somewhere along the way she lost one. I have to tell you something, Deal. I didn’t want to say, because I was embarrassed, but—”

But the doorbell rang.

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“Probably a noise complaint from all your arguing,” Dr Walker joked to Eleanor. He left his family and went to the great hall. He opened the front door without using the peephole. He was used to living in safe neighbourhoods.

Dahlia Kristoff stepped in swiftly. She wore her polka-dot dress, but no hat or shoes this time. She was completely bald. Dr Walker drew back from her splotchy red skull and yellow toes.

“Excuse me – hello? Miss? You can’t come into my house!”

“Shut up!” Dahlia hissed, striding towards the living room.

Dr Walker followed, pulling out his phone to dial 911, but suddenly the phone jumped from his hand. It flew through the air and cracked against the philosopher bust, as if it had been snatched up by a powerful gust of wind. When Dr Walker retrieved it, it wouldn’t turn on.

“Dad, who was it?” Brendan called, but instead of his father, Dahlia Kristoff stepped in. He froze.

“My God,” Mrs Walker said, “what are you doing here? How dare you barge into our home—”

“How dare you consider this your home?” Dahlia shrieked, and then the transformation began.

Brendan backed up against the driftwood-legged coffee table, watching it all in slow motion. It was like IMAX 3-D but way better (and way worse). The old crone threw her hands up. Just as he’d suspected, her right hand ended in a knobby stump. Dahlia arched her back, stretching, stretching, as if to crack the bones in her spine, and then two grey wings sprang from the neck of her dress!

Brendan was terrified, stunned, and amazed all at once. His world had just got a lot bigger. But all he could think was: I’m not gonna let this freak hurt me. And I’m not gonna let her hurt my family.

Dahlia Kristoff’s wings unfurled behind her to spread across the room. They weren’t like angel wings; they were dusty and greasy-looking, filling the air with the stench of sulphurous rot.

“Mum, what’s happening?” Eleanor cried.

“I don’t know, honey,” Mrs Walker said, grabbing her youngest with one hand and the cross around her neck with the other. Dahlia laughed – a breathy cackle, a skeleton’s laugh.

“Get out!” Dr Walker yelled, crashing into the room, but the crone swung a wing and slammed him across the back, knocking him into the piano with a cacophonous dong. On TV, Groucho Marx slid down a fireman’s pole.

Brendan tried to run for a weapon, but now Dahlia was flapping her wings, whipping the air up in the house, keeping him off balance. He stared at her. Something horrible was happening to her face. The fine blue veins under her old pale skin, which had been notable to begin with, rose to the surface, bulging as her wings beat. Soon they were joined by her red arteries, protruding from her face like lines of bark on a tree. Brendan thought she might explode and drench them all in blood.

“You!” Dahlia said, turning to Cordelia. “You stole from my library!”

“I was just – borrowing—” A gust of wind knocked Cordelia against a wall. The contents of the room were swirling in a spiral now – a pizza box, cups of soda, a Pino’s menu, the TV remote. Brendan had to clutch the couch to stay upright.

“For the honour of my father!” Dahlia Kristoff howled. “For all the evil done upon him by the Walkers! For the disturbance of the great book! For the craven consultation with Dr Hayes! For Denver Kristoff, who lives again as he lives always! A life for a life, the Wind Witch has spoken, let a page torn be a page reborn!”

Slam! The shutters closed on the living-room windows. Brendan heard them slam in the kitchen and library too. Then the glass coffee table rose and hurled towards him. He ducked, but it spun towards Mrs Walker. She was kneeling, praying. It smacked her in the head.

“Mum!” Brendan yelled. His mother hit the floor, covered in broken glass, bleeding from her forehead.

“Get down!” Dr Walker screamed to his children as he lunged towards his wife. But the Chester chair got him – the same one he’d been sleeping in that afternoon – hitting his skull with a nauseating crack. He slumped over. For some reason Brendan flashed to his mother asking Diane Dobson Is the furniture for sale? and Diane saying Everything’s for sale.

The Wind Witch – that’s what she had called herself; the Wind Witch has spoken – blew Mr and Mrs Walker into a corner. They lay unconscious against each other. Brendan, Cordelia and Eleanor were far away from them, by the piano.

The foundation of Kristoff House began to shake.

Brendan wondered if it would tip over and slide into the ocean. The television tilted up and flew at him, the Marx Brothers looking demonic until the cord came out of the wall and they disappeared. The TV shattered on the wall behind him, sending shards of plastic and LCD whirling around – “Nell, close your eyes!”