Sarah flew out with a final armful of tiny shoes and dumped them into the box. “That’s everything!”
Willa shut the lid as Sarah and Mab flitted off, accompanied by the fairies with the wasp nest. Willa followed slowly, enjoying the crackle of leaves under her feet and the autumn sunshine slanting through the trees. Everything was quiet and still.
Willa rounded the house and joined the others in the front yard. She was glad the tall construction fence hid them from the street, because they were certainly a bizarre-looking group. Robert the centaur clip-clopped around with pint-sized Tengu at his side, hopping up and down with excitement. Horace stood behind Belle in her wheelchair, her mermaid tail glistening in the sunshine. Baz, stout and grey-haired, was lying in the grass, watching everyone through half-closed eyes. Fairies buzzed around in the sunshine, their wings a fuzzy blur.
“Is everyone here?” Robert looked around. “Where’s Miss Trang?”
Just then she appeared, approaching from the other side of the house. Miss Trang was moving very slowly these days, almost like she was underwater. Willa shook her head. It didn’t look right at all.
“Is she okay?” she whispered to Belle.
“Yes, yes. She gets like this every winter. Dragons don’t like the cold, you know,” Belle answered.
“But most of the time she’s human.”
“Doesn’t matter. Inside she’s a cold-blooded reptile,” Belle remarked, then added hastily, “I mean that in the best way possible, of course.”
Everyone waited as she approached. And waited. Leaves floated down around them. Baz began to snore. At last Miss Trang reached the front walk. “What are you waiting for? Let’s go in,” she said with a yawn.
“Come on, Baz, time to wake up!” Tengu grasped Baz’s hands and tried to haul her to her feet, but she went limp and slithered out of his hands to the ground.
“Baz! If you can’t stand up, someone else will get your room, and you’ll be sleeping outside this winter!” snapped Belle.
Baz opened her eyes and sullenly raised her wrists. Tengu grabbed them, stepped on her feet, and pulled her upright. Willa smiled and gazed around at the odd group of friends. Her friends. She felt a sudden, intense fondness for them all. The feeling grew in her chest until she could hardly breathe.
“Look!” Tengu pointed. A large bird circled down toward them, landing lightly on the gatepost. Its feathers glinted in the sunshine.
“Hello, Roshni,” said Willa.
“Splendid! The phoenix has come back to us,” said Horace. “I’m sure there’s room for her here. In our home.” Everyone fell to chattering excitedly about Eldritch Manor. Willa gazed up at the house.
From the smoking ruin of three months ago, progress had certainly been made. The walls of the first floor were complete, and above that white posts rose in a skeletal description of the second storey to come. The basic beams of the place were growing up out of the ground on their own; the dwarf construction crew was merely filling in the gaps between them. There was still a lot to be done, but with the cold weather coming, Willa was glad that at least the main floor was ready for residents to move in. Robert’s room in the basement had been finished first, so Horace, Tengu, and Belle had crowded in there with him for the last two weeks. They curtained off a private corner for Belle, which was awkward, but Belle had stoutly refused to return to Willa’s house, since she and Willa’s mom were still not speaking. Baz was here, there, and everywhere, a portly old dame roaming the back alleys with her ragtag gang of neighbourhood cats. Miss Trang, well, nobody knew exactly where she’d been staying. She kept largely to herself, though now she was slowing down so much that it would be good to get her safely inside. The dwarves had promised rooms on the first floor for Horace, Tengu, Belle, Baz, and Miss Trang, though as Willa looked at the structure, she wasn’t sure how all of them could fit in there.
“Right. Let’s get started.” Robert smoothed down what was left of his white hair before clopping awkwardly up the front steps and onto the porch. The heavy wooden door featured an ornate knocker, which Robert now struck loudly.
He stepped back as the door swung open. Nine dwarves solemnly marched out, lining the porch. Willa thought they’d spruced themselves up a bit. At the very least they had washed their hands and wiped their grimy faces. A couple even wore bowties atop their ancient leather work aprons.
Last to exit was their leader, Mjodvitnir, who bowed low and intoned, “I, Mjodvitnir, son of Vestri, descendent of a long line of dwarf craftsmen and artists, am proud to present Eldritch Manor, Phase Two.”
He turned and led the way inside as everyone crowded up the steps to the door. Willa put Mab’s shoebox into Belle’s lap, took the handles of the wheelchair, and pushed her around to the new ramp at the side of the porch. They entered the house just before Robert, who took up the rear.
It was dark inside after the bright sunshine, and Willa walked right into a chandelier, a mass of dangling glass prisms hanging at eye-level. Edging her way around it, Willa saw that the front hall was wide and spacious, but with a very low ceiling.
“Um, isn’t the chandelier a little big?” she hazarded to Fjalarr, one of the dwarves. He smiled and shook his head.
“The house will grow into it. You’ll see.” He then strode to the middle of the hall.
“Ahem! Ladies, gentlemen, Little Folk. I welcome you to the opening of this, the next phase of Project Eldritch Manor. To your left you’ll find the parlour, featuring Tournesol Windows with cutting-edge sunbeam-bending technology! Sunlight streams in all day!” This elicited oohs and aahs from the company. Fjalarr continued. “The parlour opens into the dining room, and beyond that is the kitchen, which is still out of bounds. Bit of a work-in-progress mess, if you know what I mean….”
Then the dwarf gestured to the floor of the front hall. Willa noticed there was a large square cut into the floorboards.
“At your feet, convenient basement access.” Fjalarr put his hand on an intricately carved dragon topping the bannister post at the foot of the stairs. He flicked open the dragon’s mouth, and with a quiet rumble one end of the trapdoor began to lower. Everyone jumped back as it descended and came to rest, forming a ramp to the basement. Robert’s eyes lit up.
“Wonderful! May I?”
Fjalarr nodded, and Robert stepped forward, experimentally clopping down the ramp and back up again. Then he flipped the dragon’s mouth shut. The ramp rose and clicked back into place.
Robert grinned with delight. “Brilliant!”
Next Fjalarr turned and swept his arm grandly to the other side of the hall. “On your right you will find what you’ve really been waiting for. Your rooms will eventually be located on the second and third floors, but we have arranged temporary quarters for you down here. They’re a little unusual, but I trust they will serve.”
There was silence as those assembled viewed the five doors. They were right smack beside each other, with no space between them at all.
“How large are these rooms?” queried Belle. “They don’t look big enough to swing a cat in.”
Baz narrowed her eyes and hissed. “Just a figure of speech,
