"How was the manor?" asked Maddie's dad.
Maddie shrugged and dropped the pizza carrier back on the stack. "Old. Breaking down. Kinda sad, really." She hopped onto a stool, out of the way of the swirl of dinner-time pizza prep. "Michael seemed nice. In a slightly nerdy way."
"Nice eyes?" asked her dad.
"I didn't look," answered his daughter, sticking out her tongue at him. He stuck his out right back. BUT YEAH, she thought, THEY WERE NICE. AND I POINTED OUT MY LEGS TO HIM. WHAT WAS I THINKING?
"Good for you," said Mrs. Sparks. "You up for helping out for the evening?"
"Do you need me?" asked Maddie, stretching and looking at her watch. "The library is open for another hour, and I was thinking I could get a jump on my summer reading."
Her dad stopped tossing dough and her mom stopped spreading sauce. They looked at each other. Meaningfully.
"What?" asked Maddie.
"She's not MY daughter," said her dad.
"Not mine, either," said her mom. "I never started my homework until the last month, if not the last week."
"Clearly adopted," said the tall Sven, slipping by with his blond hair and a stack of pizzas for delivery. "I'm out of here. Back in twenty. You want a ride to the library?" He paused at the door, looking slightly hopeful.
"No thanks," said Maddie. "I thought I'd bike."
"Sure," said Sven. "Any time, though. You let me know."
Maddie smiled and nodded, and Sven left.
"You didn't want a ride?"
"Not really."
"Sven's a nice guy."
"He's old."
"Eighteen is old?" asked her mom. "I'll have to write that down. What does that make us, dear?"
"Aged cheese," said her husband.
Mrs. Sparks snorted. "Speak for yourself."
"Also," said Mr. Sparks, "Sven doesn't have beautiful eyes."
"I just didn't want a ride, okay? And I'm leaving." Maddie hopped off her stool and pushed out through the back door."
"Hang on!" Her mom's voice chased her out through the door. "Could you get me that mystery I wanted last month. Which was it? The--"
Maddie let the door close behind her and pretended not to hear. There was a remote chance that her mother would remember Maddie's cell phone and send a text message, or even call, but those things she could ignore. She didn't want her mother waiting for a book from the library, since Maddie didn't intend to go to the library.
The wind was brisk on her face and on her bare calves. For a trip to the library, long pants wouldn't have been necessary, but--too late--she realized she could have used them for an evening trip out to the manor. Pants and a jacket. It was summer, but not enough of summer for all the chill to be gone. Crazy weather. Maddie blamed global warming. Or global cooling.
"Costume, huh?" she muttered to herself. Right. That little 'man' was wearing a costume with bat wings that looked ALIVE? That twitched, like real wings with real muscle and tendons and even a cute little talon at the joint? Sure, that was a costume. And Maddie was going to the library.
Why would Michael lie about his butler like that? Actually, that question was easier to answer. If Maddie had a butler who was two feet tall and could fly, she'd probably want to keep it on the down-low, too.
But how does a person even get a butler like that? Did Michael bring him along in his suitcase? Didn't seem likely. Had the old Mr. Arches had servants like these all along? It was odd that the old man had waited for the pizza himself, but Maddie had assumed that it was because he liked her. No, she was sure he had liked her, but she was beginning to think that friendship wasn't the only reason Mr. Arches had given her such personal attention.
The sky wasn't quite black yet, with a lighter blue still hanging on at the fringes of the horizon. She pedaled under the occasional street light, out past the last line of houses before the long stretch of road that led out to the manor. Though she hated it, she'd put on her helmet, and she double checked that her tail-light was flashing red behind her. Better safe than sorry biking at night, and besides, there was zero chance anyone would be seeing her hair tonight. She wasn't going out to the manor to hang out.
Why was she going out there? She thought about the question while her body really swung into its rhythm, left-right, left-right, her headlight tracing a path in front of her. Curiosity, mostly. What was this new kid doing? What LIVED out there? Curiosity. Nothing to do with Michael. He was way too short. Though, she admitted, she hadn't minded too much that he'd been a little flustered by her legs. Not that her legs had anything to do with anything.
Also, when she thought about it, she was a little mad, and she was surprised that her anger was aimed at the old Mr. Arches. He'd been keeping secrets from her. Of course, EVERYONE keeps secrets, Maddie figured. We all pick our noses, but it's not something we want to share with our friends and neighbors. But even so, Mr. Arches had made her feel welcome, like he was a friend, and like she really KNEW him. And now it looked like, for the couple years she'd known him, he'd been living in a house filled with things. People with wings. Creatures. Well, maybe just one creature--couldn't be sure there were any more--but still, if there were only one, why didn't anybody seem to know a thing about the manor? Why was Mr. Arches the ONLY person who seemed to live out there? Maddie was sure there was something funky about the place, and she wanted to know what it was, and she was mad at Mr. Arches for not telling her about it. Not really mad, but a little mad.
Anyway, tonight she was doing something about it. Curiosity may kill cats, but she wasn't going to do anything too curious. Just peek in some windows, look around a bit. Then, if she found something, maybe she'd call up Michael and ask him about it. She'd put his phone number into her cell phone, just in case, and there was no way she was telling her mom and dad about THAT. They would totally misunderstand.
There it was, up ahead, the gate. She slowed and stopped and checked her watch, its light a vivid turquoise in the darkness. Fourteen minutes. She grinned. Not bad at all. She looked up to head through the gate and onto the manor grounds, and she stopped. Her eyebrows came down and she blinked.
Something was off. Strange. Hinky. Odd. Almost even freaky.
It wasn't strange like the butler had been strange. He'd been strange, but almost cute. Not exactly cute, at least not in the puppy-kind-of-cute way. More like bear-cub-cute, cute with the option of taking a bite out of you at some future date. The woods, however, were currently not any kind of cute. They were...she didn't know what they were. But Maddie didn't particularly like it.
She breathed out her nose. Whatever. She was on her bike, with lights, and no badger or skunk was going to mess with her, and it's not like there were wolverines in the neighborhood. She supposed there might be coyotes or wolves, but weren't the wolves further north this time of year? And coyotes only went after small stuff. No, she was just making stuff up because it was dark. She double-checked her cell phone, just in case, and she had plenty of battery and good signal. That was it, then: time to go in.
She leaned into the first good push and was on her way, through the gate into Daimon Home.
"Might be a problem," said Bunch, squeezing through the hole under the Noon Clock.
Crooks, who had been lost in thought, jumped in his throne and dropped the book he hadn't been able to concentrate on. "Right," he said. "Problem. I've been informed that the new Master is completely ignorant. Not a bad kid, but he has no clue what he's doing. He'll probably be gone in the morning."
"Huh," said Bunch, wrinkling up his nose. "Yeah, guess that could be a problem, too."
Crooks crooked one eyebrow at the rounder demon. "There is another problem I'm not aware of?"
"Probably lots," said Bunch, grinning. "I try to spare you when I can."
The former ruler of the South Wing looked at his minion levelly. "Your concern for me is touching."
"Don't want your blood pressure going up, you know," said the minion who had weathered many level gazes before this, and was probably up for handling quite a few more. "Be a shame to have you die of a heart attack before you managed to take back what's yours."
"No demon has ever died of a heart attack," said Crooks. "Ever. Earth and Air, some of us even have two hearts. What is this other problem?"
"What?" asked Bunch. "Oh, right. Looks like the air spirits outside are starting to make a fuss."
Crooks grimaced. "Some demon trying to slip outside? Poor fool. We do our best, but we can't feed them all."
"Is someone trying to slip out?" asked Bunch. "That is a shame."
His master blinked at him. "I thought that was what YOU were saying. No demon is going outside?"
Bunch shrugged. "Not that I know of."
"Is it gargoyles, then?"
"Nah, they got burned too many times. Last time I talked to Heavy Nose, he said they hadn't been down to garden in weeks. Drives them crazy, not being able to take care of the place, but what can you do? They stick to the roof."
"If it isn't demons and it isn't gargoyles..." Crooks let his voice trail off. "You're not trying to tell me that the new Master is trying to get out? He was warned! Sticks was perfectly clear!"
"Who's Sticks?"
"Another friend, but by your reaction, I'm guessing the Master isn't outside."
"Nope," said Bunch, picking at his teeth. "Snug as a lag in the cheek of a bag, last I heard."
Crooks finally got over his distracted state of mind--concern about the decline and fall of the manor could do that to a demon--and finished putting all the pieces together. His eyes got wide. "Are you trying to tell me--"
"Yessir," nodded Bunch. "Looks like the pizza girl is back."
"After DARK?" said Crooks, almost shouting. "Is she an idiot?"
The round demon crossed his arms on his oversized belly and shrugged. "Apparently."
The former master of the South Wing pinched his nose with his thumb and forefinger. He missed the days when he could have picked an information demon who would have told him all this at FIRST, instead of talking circles around everything. Of course, he'd never had another Head of Information and Gossip who could find out everything so FAST, so maybe it balanced out.
But what to do? No way he could get out there and protect the girl. With his Rights and Privileges in decline ever since the old Master's death, he didn't have the clout to take on an entire flock of demons of the air, and from what he'd seen and heard, there was more than one roost on the manor grounds now. Even with the demons he could call on to join him, they'd only be rushing out there in time to be picked apart along with the girl.
Maddie. Her name was Maddie, and the pizza she brought was good. In fact, pizza from her family's place was the last meal he'd had with the old Master. The Feasts could call up some amazing food, but none of them had ever managed better than a passable pizza. And besides, Crooks liked her. He'd watched her before, on his nighttime trips, and she had spunk. Energy. He had to do something about Maddie.
"I've got to go," said Crooks, jumping out of his throne and grabbing a new shirt from his pile of laundry in the corner and beginning to change.
"Go where?"
"Ask a friend to ask a friend for a favor. Also, probably to do something really stupid. Want to come?"
Bunch laughed, his belly bouncing.
"Thought so," said Crooks.
"Before you go," said the round demon, "what happened to your tail?"
"It'll grow back," said Crooks.
"That isn't an answer."
"It's all the answer you're getting at the moment. You may be my information demon, Bunch, but that doesn't mean I tell you everything."
Now you've got me all wound up! Hurry and write about what happens!
ReplyDeleteI know! Right? Tell that cold he's history.
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