Odd shouted after her. ‘Whatever you do—’
‘Don’t tell Piglet – I know.’
She slowed down as she reached the yawning opening to her left that led down into the bowels of the house. She crept towards it, one eye on the incline that led deep into the dark. She fought the urge to whisper, ‘Piglet.’ She remembered the words Uncle Enoch and the others were so fond of using.
Piglet is dangerous.
She turned to go to the entrance hall and out through the main door. Her excitement was building. There was a constant fluttering in her stomach. She ran down the steps and stopped in front of the bushes. Something was snuffling in the undergrowth, something huge and hulking rooting at the soil.
‘Uncle Bertram.’
The snuffling stopped suddenly.
‘Uncle Enoch wants us all in the Room of Lights.’
She saw red glimmering among the leaves and she heard a grunt. Her job done, she turned and went back into the house.
She followed the hallway around, passing the dining room on her right, before stopping in front of a pair of impossibly tall double doors at the end of the corridor.
She pushed the doors open and stepped into the Room of Lights. The towering walls of the cavernous room were covered in dozens of old portraits that seemed to stretch upwards into infinity. Mirabelle’s neck hurt to look up at the topmost ones, and even then she couldn’t make them out clearly. The ones she could see were stunning in their variety and strangeness. There was a painting of a man in sixteenth-century dress, his collar a huge white ruffle. He would have been unremarkable except for the three large eyes that took up most of his face. There was a painting of two Victorian ladies in billowing dresses, both of them with four arms. There was a small boy in a white robe, his black eyes expressionless orbs, and four twisting horns on his head.
But most amazing of all were the dozens of orbs of light of varying brightness and colour that hung suspended in the air at differing intervals and heights.
Enoch called them the Spheres. These were throughways for their people into this world, passages in from what they called the Ether. Uncle Enoch had described this to her as: ‘The place where we are created, where we sleep before birth. A place we have no memory of, but which haunts our dreams.’
Mirabelle didn’t quite understand it, but she’d read in a book in the library about a place called Heaven which humans believed was a place they went to after death, and she supposed maybe it was something like that: a grand mysterious idea, unquestioned. She liked the idea of magic, of miracles that couldn’t be explained, even among a family as miraculous as hers.
Enoch was already standing before one of the orbs. Dotty and Daisy, the twins, were with him, their blonde ringlets spilling down over their shoulders. They looked like dolls in their matching blue-and-white pinafores.
‘Hello, Mirabelle,’ said Dotty, smiling, her voice timid and quavering.
‘Hello, Mirabelle,’ Daisy sniffed haughtily.
Mirabelle smiled sweetly.
They were interrupted by the sound of the double doors crashing open as Uncle Bertram huffed and puffed his way into the room. In his changed aspect Uncle Bertram was very tall and fat. He wore yellow pinstriped trousers, a red cravat, a mustard-coloured shirt, a purple smoking jacket and a green waistcoat. His large bearded face twitched with excitement.
‘How long?’ he panted.
‘Not long,’ said Enoch without taking his eyes off the orb. It was a greenish gold, and mist swirled in it, and within that mist was something grey and spindly. Sometimes it would look like it was coalescing, then it would become smoky and vanish altogether, reappearing again seconds later.
‘Oh my, oh my. Imagine if Aunt Rula were here to see this,’ said Bertram, cramming his knuckles into his mouth in an effort to stop himself from squealing.
Enoch gave a good-humoured sigh. ‘Yes, imagine.’
Aunt Rula had lived in the house long before Mirabelle had arrived. Like Odd, she hadn’t been very fond of being stuck in one place. One day, she’d decided to go out and travel the human world – and she’d never come back. Aunt Eliza once confided in Mirabelle that Bertram had been heartbroken. He’d had a soft spot for Rula, Eliza said, and had pined for her for ‘a hundred years or so’. By the sound of it, he was still pining.
The doors opened again, and in swept Aunt Eliza, fixing her hair and patting her long red dress.
‘I hope I haven’t missed anything,’ she said, speaking aloud now that her form was fully constituted and solid. She pulled a long glove on to her right arm, and despite her cool demeanour Mirabelle knew she was excited because her arm was undulating as the spiders that made up her body settled among themselves, trying to find their places and form the shape of fingers.
There was another tang of iron, and a black circle formed in mid-air beside Mirabelle. The circle swirled and grew larger, and Odd stepped through it. Now he was dressed like a Victorian public schoolboy in the customary black jacket with its white collar, along with trousers that stopped at his knees. He twirled his little finger in the air, and the portal suddenly shrank and blinked out of sight.
Mirabelle sighed and shook her head.
He shrugged. ‘What?’
‘Can’t you use the door like normal people?’
Odd winked at her. ‘I can – I just choose not to.’
All attention turned back to the orb. Mirabelle could almost taste the expectation in the room, and she was surprised to find she was on the brink of tears. She was moved, but above all she felt an overwhelming sense of pride. This was her first time welcoming a new member of the Family. She wanted to be dignified and calm for everyone. She wiped her eyes quickly, hoping no one would notice.
‘This is like your arrival all those years ago.’
‘I’m sure you were delighted,’ said Mirabelle.
Odd considered this for a moment. ‘I’ve had worse days, I suppose.’
‘Hush now,’ said Enoch, ‘the moment is here.’
The orb started to shimmer. Its light was almost blinding, but everyone kept their eyes on it. The grey shape started to solidify, and Mirabelle heard Eliza’s voice in her mind now, awe-filled and gently hushed.
. . . the youngest of us all . . .
‘The youngest must step forward,’ said Enoch.
Mirabelle didn’t even notice who put the blanket in her arms. She stepped towards the orb and held the blanket out between her hands. The small figure emerged from the light, and as it did the light faded, and Mirabelle found herself holding a baby in her arms.
The baby had one eye and was covered in grey scales, and when he mewled Mirabelle could see his sharp teeth. She loved him immediately.
‘Welcome,’ said Enoch. ‘Welcome to the Family.’
Everyone else applauded, apart from Bertram, who was blubbering about how much Rula would have loved to share the moment. Aunt Eliza rolled her eyes, then patted him on the arm.
‘And now the once-youngest must show our new arrival his home,’ said Enoch.
They parted for Mirabelle.
‘Gideon,’ she said. ‘His name is Gideon.’
‘A good strong name,’ said Enoch.
‘Lovely . . . just . . . lovely,’ Bertram snivelled, wiping tears from his eyes.
Mirabelle left the Room of Lights and the first place she went with Gideon was the deepest part of the house. The gloom of the cavernous corridor that led down to where Piglet was kept was no impediment to her. She stood before the huge metal door that kept him contained. The child murmured in his blanket and sucked his thumb as she whispered, ‘Piglet, this is Gideon. He’s part of the Family now.’