The
Aunt Edas
He
could hardly believe what he was seeing.
It was the exact same white wooden
house. The same door, the same steep,
sloping grey roof. A window was open,
upstairs. The window that Martha had
looked out of.
He rubbed his eyelids to check he
wasn’t imagining things, but
when he opened his eyes the house
was still there.
‘Weird,’ said Samuel.
Then he saw the blue feathered bird
fly, or fall over his head and through
the open window.
He lifted himself up and knocked on
the door.
No answer.
He knocked again.
Still no answer.
He turned the doorknob. It wasn’t
locked.
‘Hello?’ Samuel called,
as he walked inside. ‘Is anybody
there?’
He looked around the hallway, and
peeped in the kitchen and the living
room.
Everything was the same but different.
The rooms were exactly the same size,
but there were no rugs on the floor,
and instead of Aunt Eda’s pictures
of mountains there were more bookcases
- one against every wall.
‘Hello? Hell-o?’
A woman appeared at the top of the
stairs. A tall woman with a long neck
and wine-bottle shoulders and hair
in a very tight bun.
‘Aunt Eda,’ said Samuel,
in total shock.
‘Yes,’ she answered, but
her voice came from the kitchen not
the landing.
Samuel
turned to see another Aunt Eda, wearing
the same clothes and smile, carrying
a basket of washing and walking towards
him.
‘There’s two of you,’
Samuel said.
‘Take your shoes off at the
front door,’ said Aunt Eda,
but not the Aunt Eda
who was in the kitchen or standing
at the top of the staircase. This
was a third Aunt Eda, who was standing
right behind him.
Too stunned to speak, he did as he
was told, leaving his pixie sandals
by the door mat. Then he saw the row
of identical pairs of round-toed ankle-boots
that Aunt Eda used to wear. There
must have been twenty pairs.
‘There’s a good boy,’
said Aunt Eda.
‘There’s a good boy,’
said Aunt Eda.
‘There’s a good boy,’
said Aunt Eda.
‘There’s a good boy,’
said Aunt Eda.
‘There’s a good boy,’
said Aunt Eda.
He was surrounded by Aunt Edas, coming
to greet him from every room in the
house.
‘Do you want some cheese?’
asked one.
‘Some cheese and flat-bread?’
asked another.
‘No,’ said Samuel, finding
his voice at last.
‘What about some reindeer soup?’
Samuel looked in their eyes and realised
none of these Aunt Edas recognised
him.
‘I’ve got to find my sister,’
he told them. ‘Is she here?’
Blank faces stared back at him.
‘My sister, Martha. She’s
a girl. She’s ten years old.
She wears a blue dress
and she doesn’t speak. Have
you seen her?’
The Aunt Edas spoke at once, and made
no sense, so Samuel ran up the stairs
past the first Aunt Eda he had seen.
‘No running on the stairs,’
she said, but he ignored her.
He searched the room where he and
his sister slept, except it was a
different
room now, just as this was a different
house. The room the bird had flown
into. But he couldn’t see either
his sister or the bird.
The room was filled with five wide
beds, and an Aunt Eda was lying in
each.
‘Knock before entering young
man,’ said one.
‘It’s our number five
rule,’ said another.
‘Martha?’ he called, but
Martha wasn’t there.
He went back out on the landing, where
the first of the Aunt Edas said: ‘He’ll
be here soon.’
‘Who? Who’ll be here?’
‘He won’t be happy.’
‘The Changemaker? Is this where
he lives?’
‘He won’t be happy,’
she repeated, rather unhelpfully.
‘Where is he?’
‘With the Shadow Witch. In the
Grim Tree.’ She said this as
if it was the most
obvious thing in the world.
Samuel moved past the Aunt Eda and
into another bedroom, where more were
waiting for him.
‘Knock before entering.’
‘It’s our number five
rule.’
‘I’m looking for my sister,
Martha. Have you seen her.’
All blank faces. Then he looked across
the room at a bird-cage with its door
open.
Inside was the blue-feathered bird.
The one who had saved him from Troll-Mother’s
knife.
The bird looked up with its small
blinkless eyes, and didn’t make
a sound.
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