House of Secrets

“Cordelia?” Brendan said. “It’s just a bat! What’s your problem?”

“I hate bats!” Cordelia answered from downstairs. “Where did it come from?”

Brendan looked at the stand where the bat skeleton had been. Sure enough, the stand was there. But the skeleton was gone.

“Remember that bat skeleton I told you I saw? Well… I think it came to life.”

“If it’s a magical zombie bat, you shouldn’t mess with it!” Cordelia said, running her fingers through her hair. She was sure she could feel the bat’s sinewy wings brushing against her scalp.

In the attic, Brendan motioned for Eleanor to help him. They approached the window as the bat circled frantically. They opened the shutters; sunlight flooded the room. The bat retreated to a corner in the rafters.

“Is it gone?” Cordelia asked from downstairs. “Can I come up?”

But Brendan and Eleanor didn’t answer. They couldn’t. They were too busy staring out of the window.

A primeval forest lay outside Kristoff House.

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Trees with trunks as thick as houses reached up so high that Brendan and Eleanor couldn’t see the tops no matter how they craned their necks. Beams of dappled light broke on giant ferns spread like green fans over mossy logs. It looked like the painted background in a dinosaur exhibit, still and calm and even a bit fake. Trees marched into the distance, blending into a uniform brown-and-green curtain.

“Where are we?” gasped Eleanor.

Brendan opened the window. Sounds swept in: caws, chirps and rustlings in the air.

Downstairs, Cordelia noticed that her siblings were unusually quiet, so she went back into the attic to see what was going on. “Hello?” she said, stepping to the window. “Whoa.”

The trees started just a metre from the house. Smaller trees stood below them, where the honey-hued light broke through. A thin haze lay at eye level, listing up and down. They could make out the sound of a brook babbling in the distance and, behind the caws and chirps, a loud, grating buzz. The haze entered the attic, carrying a tang of dirt and pine and a balm of sweet flowers and sap.

“Where’s our street?” whispered Eleanor.

“Maybe the Wind Witch moved our house somewhere,” Cordelia said.

“Jurassic Park?” asked Eleanor.

“Humboldt County.”

“Does Humboldt County have those?” Brendan pointed to one of the towering trees in the distance. Circling it was the source of the buzzing – a monstrous dragonfly with the wingspan of a condor.

The dragonfly’s body was dull green, its wings clear mesh. It drifted up and down as it circled around the trunk, disappearing and reappearing, its purple eyes as big as dinner plates. It was so huge that the Walker children could see its complicated mouth parts twitching.

“Close the window!” Cordelia yelled.

Brendan leaned forward. “It can’t hurt us. It’s… what’s the word? Vegan?”

“Herbivorous. Seriously, Bren, close it.”

Brendan had another idea: he stuck his second and third finger between his lips and whistled. It was one of those skills he was proud of that his sisters hated.

“Bren!”

“I just want to see if he’ll come closer!”

The sound aggravated the bat in the rafters. It dived for the window. Cordelia shrieked as it flew past her and darted outside. The Walker kids watched it zigzag through the mist, threading between the trees – and then the dragonfly whipped out a long tongue and nabbed it.

Eleanor screamed as the dragonfly drew the bat into its mouth and started grinding it into digestible mush. The giant insect buzzed towards the house as it ate, its purple eyes focused on the Walkers like they were next.

Brendan slammed the window shut and they all ran from the attic, not stopping until they got to the kitchen with its comforting (if damaged) stainless-steel appliances. Cordelia promptly opened all the shutters, locked all the windows, and turned to Brendan.

“Not exactly herbivorous,” said Cordelia.

“Where are we?” Eleanor asked. “Bugs aren’t supposed to eat bats! It’s the other way round!”

“Obviously it was different in dinosaur times,” said Brendan. “I think we were sent back to the prehistoric era.” He was reminded of those books Cordelia used to read to him when he was five – the ones with the tree house that travelled through time.

“I don’t know if dragonflies ever got that big,” Cordelia said. “I’m not sure where we are…”

She stopped, noticing a black plastic corner peeking from under the fridge. Her mobile. She pulled it out; it was scuffed but intact. It sprang to electronic life.

“Does it work?” Brendan asked.

Cordelia closed her eyes and made a wish, but when she opened them, she saw what she expected. “No bars.”

“Let me see!” Eleanor grabbed the phone and tried Mum, but got CALL FAILED.

Brendan sighed. “That’s what you get for not having four-G.”

“Maybe the landline works,” Cordelia suggested. Brendan took the cordless white receiver off the wall. He looked at his sisters. They looked like they were about to crack, like they needed some good news. Brendan briefly considered faking a call to 911, so he could give them some hope, but before he could decide if that was a good idea, all the lights in the house went out.

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“What did you do?” Eleanor demanded. It wasn’t just the overhead lights; the LEDs on the microwave and stove were out too.

“Nothing!” Brendan said, putting the phone back in its cradle. Sunlight slanted through the curtains.

“I was worried this might happen,” said Cordelia. “We must’ve been running on a backup generator since the attack.”

“We have a backup generator?”

“We must have something – it’s probably in the basement. I don’t think there’s a ‘grid’ out here.”

“So let’s start it back up.”

“With what, Bren? Generators need fuel.”

“Maybe there are fuel cans down there! Come on! We need to do something. Without power we’ll starve—”

“But what if there’s something else in the basement?” asked Eleanor.