The Ponywick Chronicles

Chapter two

In which the walls are explored by vastly different methods

Leaks in the roof had completely deteriorated the floors in all but three of the upstairs bedrooms. Their mother got one, Malory got the next, and the twins had been forced to share the last one.

After they were all completely unpacked, Simon’s side of the bedroom was filled with glass tanks of all shapes and sizes. A few held fish, but the rest were occupied with mice, lizards, and plenty of other critters that Simon had confined to mud filled cages. Their mother had allowed everything but his two mice, which Simon had smuggled anyway.

Their cries and small noises that they constantly made had kept Jared up late into the night, and the pegasis was tossing and turning restlessly. Over and over on the lumpy mattress, re-adjust the pillow, move around and try again. Hours passed, and sleep still eluded him. He didn’t really mind sharing a room with his brother, but sharing a room with hoards of animals that squeaked, rustled, and scratched was more eerie than sleeping alone. It made him think about that thing in the walls. He’d shared a room with Simon back in the city, but the animals had all been drowned out by the city noises. Here, nothing was familiar.

Breaking him out of his thoughts, the hinges to Jared’s bedroom door gave out a loud ‘creak,’ startling him enough to make his wings shoot out and send him into the ceiling. After banging his head, Jared looked down at his sister Malory giving him a small smile.

“Can’t sleep?” She asked. Jared nodded and slowly dropped to the bedroom floor. “I think I heard your squirrel.” Jared raised an eyebrow and then looked over at Simon, who was sawing logs in his sleep.

“Come on Jared, it’s not like that thing is going to wait for us, right?” Malory motioned him out of the doorway and then started walking down the hall towards the stairs. Jared walked over to Simon and started prodding his shoulder with a fore hoof.

“Simon, wake up!” Jared whispered. After getting no response, he started tickling him with a wing. “New pet Simon, new pet! Wake up!” Simon finally woke up at the mention of animals, and after a hushed conversation, followed Jared and Malory to the kitchen.

“Mom said that she was going into town for some milk and cereal and that I’m supposed to look after you two. We don’t have much time before she gets back, ok?” Malory led them both into the back corner of the kitchen.

As soon as they had entered the room, the three Grace children had immediately noticed the sounds of something stirring in the walls. Occasionally, there was a sound like scratching, or even small footsteps under the floor, in the ceiling, and in the walls. The sound grew louder when they all got closer to the kitchen sink. The remains of last night’s dinner lay encrusted on a pan in the sink.

“I think it’s right there. Listen!” The kitchen went dead silent. Malory levitated a small but sturdy broom over, lighting up the room with her blue magic. “I’m going to try knocking open the wall.”

“Are you serious?” Simon asked, grabbing the broom from her. “I’m pretty sure mom will notice a gaping hole in the wall!”

“In this old house? Not likely,” Jared quipped, then snatched the broom from his brother. “Do it Malory.” He handed the broom back to her.

Malory nodded and then swung. The broom blew through the thin plaster, shooting white dust all over her, settling in her fur and mane almost making Malory look like a ghost. Jared looked into the hole and felt the fur on the back of his neck stand up. Wads of fabric lined a small box in the wall, and there was a small assortment of odds and ends clustered inside.

The remains of some tattered curtains sat in one corner, and tattered silk and lace sat in a jumbled heap. There were strands of cockroaches strung on the back wall like garlands, and a decapitated doll’s head on a jam lid. There were some tin soldiers with melted wings and faces lined up in ranks like some kind of fallen battlement of Royal Guards. Jagged shards of a mirror glittered from where they had been glued to the wall with ancient gum.

Malory looked a little closer and then levitated out a silver fencing medal. “This is mine…” She started.

“The squirrel probably just took it,” Simon suggested.

“No, this is too weird.” Jared said.

“A mare from down the street had a pair of ferrets as pets, and they were always stealing and hiding her figurines and stuff,” Simon interjected. “And besides, lots of other animals like to take shiny things.”

“But look Simon,” Jared said pointing at the strung up cockroaches. “What kind of ferret strings up bugs like its Hearthswarming?”

Malory shrugged and then started to sweep the junk out with a hoof. “Let’s clear some of this stuff out of here. Maybe if it doesn’t have a nest, then it will leave the house.”

Jared hesitated. He didn’t want to feel around inside the ‘nest,’ like, what if the animal was sitting in a dark corner and attacks? Jared didn’t know much, but he did know that squirrels weren’t normally this creepy. “I don’t think we should be doing this.”

Malory ignored him as she started dragging over a large trash can. Simon started pulling out wads of the musty cloth. “There’s no droppings either. How weird…” He dropped the cloths into the garbage bin and then pulled out some of the tin soldiers. “Hey, these are actually pretty cool! Right Jared?”

Jared agreed with him by nodding his head. “They’d be better with faces and wings though.”

Simon set the soldiers on the counter and then turned back to the nest. “Hey, have either of you seen an animal like this before?” Jared asked. “I mean, some of this stuff looks really old. Maybe the squirrel is as crazy as Aunt Lucy.”

“Yeah,” Simon said with a grin. “This squirrel must be real nutty!”

Malory groaned, rolling her eyes, then suddenly went silent. “I hear it again.”

“Huh?” Jared whispered.

“Quiet!” Simon hushed.

“We’re being quiet,” Malory hissed back.

“Shush,” Jared said.

The three of them snuck over to where the sound was coming from, just as the noise itself changed. Instead of hearing the small clatter of little claws scrabbling on wood, they could clearly hear the scrape of nails on metal.

“Look,” Simon said, leaning down to point out a small sliding door set into the wall.

“It’s a dumbwaiter,” Malory explained in a hushed voice. “Servants used to send trays of food and stuff upstairs. There must be another door like this in one of the bedrooms.”

“That thing sounds like it’s in the shaft,” Jared said.

Malory tried climbing into the box. “It’s too small for me. One of you is going to have to go.”

Simon looked at her skeptically. “But what if the ropes holding this thing up aren’t good anymore?”

“It would only be a short fall,” Malory said, causing both twins to look at her in astonishment.

Jared shook his head and started climbing in. “I guess I’ll go up then.” Jared felt pleased to have found something that Malory couldn’t do.

The inside of the dumbwaiter was dirty and smelled of aged wood. Jared sat on his back legs and scrunched his fore legs into his chest with his wings pressed flat against his sides. He fit, but just barely.

“Is the squirrel still even in the shaft?” Simon questioned, his voice sounding tiny and distant through the closed door.

“I can’t tell,” Jared answered softly, listening to the echoes of his words. “I can’t hear anything.”

Malory started pulling the rope, sending the dumbwaiter upwards with a jolt.

“Can you see anything yet?” She asked after a while of moving the dumbwaiter.

“No!” Jared called out. He could hear the scratching noise, but it was still distant. “Besides, it’s completely pitch black in here!”

Jared stopped moving with a noise that sounded like wood grinding against metal. “That’s as far as it goes!” Malory called out.

Jared looked out of the small metal box and into what looked like a small library. He un-crammed himself from the small space and into the unfamiliar room.

He suddenly had no idea where he was.