It could have been worse. She’d even been kind, or ostensibly kind anyway, sending them off to get cleaned up and not even fussing at them about bathing together while she made a big pot of soup and then tucked them into bed, in her bed even, since she didn’t like to climb the stairs but wanted to keep an eye on them. Only later did it occur to Melanie that she’d probably just wanted to make sure they didn’t get pneumonia or something so Mummy and Daddy wouldn’t petition the courts to stop the annual visits.
It had been the next morning, over porridge, when she’d let them have it. She had interrogated them about what they had been up to, really, since she didn’t believe for a minute that neither of them would have realized they had “accidentally” been swept out to sea. When Jon had finally confessed their goal, she’d given a blistering lecture on fiction versus reality and then told them that if they had to be brought back by the police again she would lock them in the house for good.
Both of them believed she was thoroughly capable of carrying out that threat.
The trouble was that there wasn’t much for them to do inside. They didn’t have any puzzles, hadn’t brought any toys with them, didn’t know how to play chess and weren’t allowed to touch the set anyway for whatever reason. There was the telly, but when Grandmother Sims—no, Mrs Sims, Melanie wasn’t supposed to call her Grandmother—had realized that they’d got the idea for their adventure from a television program, she’d forbidden them from watching it until she was satisfied they would understand that just because they could see something, even with real people climbing around it, didn’t mean it was actually real. Which pretty much left them books.
Melanie hated reading. She didn’t dislike books in general—she loved being read to—but actually reading herself, she struggled. The words seemed to slide around on the page and escape easy comprehension. Mr Dumphrey, their teacher that year, had been very helpful and given her a few tricks, but it still wasn’t easy like it was for Jon and she still hated it. Jon could skate through a book in almost no time flat, but when they were reading on their own, he would linger over pages, rereading and savoring passages before moving on. He was also, luckily for her, more than happy to read out loud to her when she asked him to, and they’d read a lot of very good books like that.
The thing was that Jon didn’t like rereading books. Or, no, not disliked, but it bored him to already know where the book was going, or to feel like he’d read it before. Melanie didn’t mind, and in fact often preferred to reread old favorites because she could usually pin the letters down easier, and she counted herself lucky that Jon was willing to reread books, or finish books he clearly didn’t like, if she asked him to. For her. In return, she’d sat through him reading a couple of books he liked a lot that she didn’t care for, because it only seemed fair.
But Mrs Sims didn’t exactly have a vast library of books, and Jon and Melanie had already read them all. (Well, not exactly all of them. Mrs Sims mostly seemed to read the same three or four authors, and even Melanie hadn’t been desperate enough to ask Jon to read her another one of those.) They didn’t bring books with them because books made their suitcases too heavy to carry on their own on the train and they couldn’t count on the aunt they were being put in the charge of to help them, and it was a long way to the library if they walked (Mrs Sims didn’t drive and taxis cost too much money, she said), so they usually only went once every summer.
Surprisingly, Mrs Sims had actually hit on a solution.
“There,” she announced, dumping her latest pile of books onto the floor of the living room. “You ought to find enough in that to last you the rest of the visit.”
She swept out of the room and into the master bedroom, leaving the door open, and a few moments later they heard the opening notes of one of her stories coming from the telly. Melanie scowled in that direction, then turned back to Jon. “Did you hear an or else in that, or was it just me?”
Jon wrinkled his nose. “It’s not just you. We’ll have to read slow. Come on, let’s see if there’s anything juicy in this lot.”
As solutions went, it wasn’t a bad one. Mrs Sims had decided to simply waltz into the nearest charity shop, buy up all of the books on sale for less than a pound, and bring them home for Jon and Melanie to pick through. Once they had read everything they wanted out of it, she would take them all to a different shop and begin again. Melanie reckoned it wouldn’t last for long, since there were only so many charity shops in Bournemouth within walking distance, but maybe it would work for a couple of years yet. This, however, was the third lot she’d brought them, and her tone of voice had definitely left the impression that she had expected this to hold them longer.
It wasn’t exactly their fault, since she wasn’t looking at anything other than the price. The first batch had been mostly soppy romances and a few battered classics, so hadn’t held them long. The second lot had been more interesting, including a particularly gory horror novel she would never have permitted them to even look at while at the library, let alone check out, but even so they had gone through everything inside of a week. It was clear that Mrs Sims was not prepared to indulge them much further, so they had best set aside a good stockpile and read slow.
At first glance, it didn’t look promising. At least half of the titles didn’t have pictures on the cover, which usually meant they were some sort of dry, dusty textbook. Melanie picked one up and squinted at it hard, trying to make the letters make sense, then gave a frustrated growl and held it out to Jon. “I can’t even begin to make this one out! What’s it called?”
Jon took the book and puzzled over it for a moment, which surprised her, then flipped it open and skimmed it before shaking his head in obvious relief. “It’s in Latin. I think. I recognize this phrase from one of Daddy’s law books, anyway. We could try to work it out, but I don’t think it’ll make much sense.”
“That’s okay,” Melanie said, relieved. She wasn’t completely stupid. “Anything good over there?”
“This one has a dragon on the cover.” Jon held up a thick book with a fancy script on the title, which probably meant it was long and tricky to get through. Might hold them for a while. “It’s called A Darkness at—Seth-a-non. I think that’s how it’s pronounced. It must be a made up place.”
“Are you sure?”
“There are dragons, Melanie. It’s not in England.” Jon set it aside in the for later pile and reached for another one. “Oh, this one’s a cookbook, never mind.”
Melanie picked up a book with a black cover and bright writing, which might mean a horror book. The cover showed a pretty girl with long, flowing hair. She was about to read the title aloud, or try to, when she saw the author’s name and dropped it. “Nope. Not that one.”
Jon picked it up curiously and dropped it just as quickly. “I don’t know if she has that one. Maybe we should bring it to her later. She might want to keep it.”
“I don’t know why she likes those.”
“I don’t, either.” Jon pushed the book away with the Latin book and mumbled, “For all she says we’re not supposed to confuse fiction and reality…”
Melanie paused, turning that over in her mind for a moment. “You reckon that’s why she won’t let us shut the door?”
Jon shrugged one shoulder. “I dunno. I tell you what, though, I’m not going to eat any powdered doughnuts if she offers them to us.”
“You’d better not.” Melanie wrinkled her nose at him and went back to rummaging through the pile. A slim white cardboard volume caught her eye, and she tugged on the corner. “Oh, look, she found one I can read all by myself, isn’t that nice of her.”
Jon looked up with a frown. “You can read just fine on your own. It just takes you longer. Maybe if you read some of these to me we can make them last the rest of the summer.”
“Ha, ha, very funny.”
“I wasn’t joking. What’s the book called?”
Melanie pulled the book free and held it up. It was very obviously a children’s picture book, which even at her reading ability she’d outgrown, with a simple black drawing of a spider accented with a red bowler hat. The words were on the cover like they had been written there, not printed, and to her surprise she could read them fairly easily. “A Guest for Mister Spider.”
She opened the book, curious, to see a book plate indicating it had originally come from a library of some kind—not the Bournemouth Library, but one she couldn’t quite make out properly. She turned the page and beheld a drawing of the spider, wearing his bowler hat, standing in a living room. There weren’t even as many words on one page as in Paddiwack and Cosy—actually there weren’t any words on the first page. Jon scooted over next to her as she turned the page slowly until she found the first words. “Knock, knock. Who’s there, Mister Spider?”
It was a simple book, of the sort used to teach a simple lesson, although Melanie had no idea what it was meant to teach; the words weren’t all that simple, as words went, and Mister Spider certainly wasn’t very appreciative of the gifts his neighbors were bringing him. Her stomach turned and her voice shook when she got to the third visitor.
“It’s Mister Horse. And he’s brought you his son.”
Mister Horse, and his son, were both very large, very detailed flies in dungarees, but the expressions on their faces reminded Melanie, suddenly and painfully, of the way Daddy had looked the night they had first thought Mrs Sims was going to take Jon away—and the way Jon had looked when he’d thought they might want him gone. It was the look of someone who had already lost so much and was about to lose everything, and she moved unconsciously closer to her brother as she read, just confirming he was still there.
There was a door on the last page. It looked so real, so inviting, that Melanie held it up in front of her like there was an actual door there as she read. “It is…polite…to knock.”
Slowly, shakily, she raised her free hand, forming into knuckles, and drew back to knock on the door.
“Well, well, well, what have we here, eh?”
The book was suddenly ripped from Melanie’s fingers—and Jon’s, who was holding the other side. She blinked, gasping in surprise, as the world rushed back in in glorious Technicolor, greens and browns and blues and—
Wait. How had they got to the park?
“That’s not yours,” Jon said indignantly, but he also sounded a little disorientated. Melanie felt his hand slip into hers and squeeze.
She looked up and nearly growled in frustration. Of course. Standing over them, holding the book over their heads like bait, was none other than Andrew Young.
“What, little baby genius reading a little baby book?” Andrew sneered. He was fairly well known in the area, something of a jack of all trades—and master of none—who “did” for quite a few of the widows and elderly folks in the area, of which there were many, billing himself as “Handy Andy”. He’d developed a long lasting and enduring hatred of Jon the first summer they were here based entirely on the fact that Jon was smarter than he was, which actually wasn’t that difficult; there were things lurking at the bottom of the Bourne that were smarter than Andrew was, and more likable and better smelling, too. He was the sort of person disqualified from being the Village Idiot because he wasn’t smart enough for the title, and he compensated for that by being a bully. That his chosen targets were ten years his junior spoke to the fact that he was also a coward who knew anyone older would likely put him in his place.
If he thought Jon and Melanie between them couldn’t put him in his place, he was even stupider than he looked, except that they would get in real trouble if they got caught fighting again.
“Give it back, Andrew,” she said. She jumped for it, even though she knew it wouldn’t do any good. She didn’t know why it was so important that she have it back, but it was theirs.
“Or what?” Andrew asked, grinning sharply. “What are you going to do, runt, chew my ankles off?” He snickered and brought the book down. “Of course you were reading something like this. Need any help with the big words? A Guest for Mister Spider.” He enunciated each syllable carefully.
His voice trailed off, however, as he opened the book and his eyes locked on the pictures. His jaw went slack, making him look even stupider than usual, and he began to read. And to walk, as if in a dream.
Jon and Melanie looked at each other. On unspoken agreement, they followed him. Maybe the big idiot would fall down a sewer grating and they could catch the book before it went after.
His path took him away from the park and down a street. Melanie wasn’t sure what page he was on until he walked up to the porch of one of the houses and held the book up in front of himself, right over the front door of the building.
It is polite to knock.
Seemingly in a trance, Andrew raised one hand, curled it into a fist, and rapped it against the book. Knock. Knock.
The door opened.
It opened slowly and quickly at the same time, not very far, just enough for them to see a black pit beyond. Thin, spindly black arms reached out of the door, reaching for Andrew. He never had time for anything more than a brief whimper before the arms dragged him into the door and it slammed shut behind him.
“Melanie!” Jon’s arms were suddenly tight around her chest, and he was dragging her back—when had she gone up to the steps? When had she started to go in? They overbalanced and fell over, landing hard on their backsides, and Jon didn’t let go of Melanie as he tried to scoot backwards.
Something inside Melanie snapped, like a tether had been cut. She pushed to her feet and grabbed Jon’s hand, dragging him upright, and they ran. She wasn’t even sure where they were exactly, but they ran as fast as they could away. Away was the important thing. Away from the house, away from the door, away from Mister Spider. She knew he was real, he was in that house, that was where he lived, and if they had knocked on the door then they would have been the more he wanted and they wouldn’t have come out…
“That does it,” Mrs Sims boomed as they burst through the front door, gasping and with tears streaming down their faces and still clutching one another’s hands. “I told you to stay indoors. If you cannot follow such simple instructions, then this door will remain locked unless you are accompanied by me in the future. We will discuss this further in the morning. To your rooms without supper, and not another word!”
Melanie didn’t argue. For once, there was nothing she wanted more than to be in their room, locked in and safe, and she didn’t think she could eat now if she was expected to.
Somehow, she wasn’t surprised when Jon, not even bothering to change into his pajamas, crawled under the bed. Melanie crawled in after him. It felt secure down there, and they snuggled together and clung and tried to stop shaking.
“That was worse, right?” she finally asked. “It’s not just my imagination? That was worse than the boat.”
She felt rather than saw Jon nod. “The boat was—i-it was just us, and it was…it just happened. That—that book tried to take us, a-and Andrew…he saved us.”
“He was an idiot,” Melanie said, her voice watery. “He took something that wasn’t his and he fell into a trap and—he didn’t save us on purpose, Jon. He just took our place.”
“It’s not fair,” Jon murmured. “It’s not right.”
“But it happened.”
“It happened.” Jon’s voice was nearly a whisper.
They lay there silently for several minutes, relishing the fact that they were alive and together and safe, at least for now. Nothing could get to them. Melanie instinctively felt that Mister Spider would be full, at least for now, and that he wouldn’t come after them anymore, but even if he did, he would have to get through the doors and Mrs Sims, and she was tough and chewy enough that she would probably slow him down enough for them to get away.
“We should find out more,” Jon said finally. “Not now. But when we grow up. Maybe, maybe there are scientists or, or people like that who study…scary things. Monsters and ghosts and whatnot. Maybe we can do something like that.”
Melanie turned the idea over in her mind. It made sense. “Then we can prevent other kids from getting hurt. Or other idiots like Andrew from getting taken away. Maybe if we know, we can…fix them. There are lots of doctors who can help people like Mummy, but if there were lots of people who knew what things like Mister Spider was, we’d hear about them, right?”
“Right.” Jon sighed and pressed his forehead against Melanie’s. “We can find out when we get home if it’s a thing already or if we have to be the first ones, but we can do it. We can.”
“We can,” Melanie agreed. “Maybe Andrew won’t be the last one ever, but we’ll be the ones to make sure somebody else is.”