Tad Williams: The Secrets of Ordinary Farm

Let me fly into Mount Zion,

Lord, Lord.”

The song was exactly right for the mood: or perhaps it was how Caesar sang it… Even Mr. Walkwell tapped a hoof. Ooola the Ice Age girl stood in the middle of the floor swaying and twisting her fingers in her thick brown hair.

“I jes wanta get up in the Promised Land-”

A hard hand fell onto Tyler’s shoulder: he jumped in surprise.

“Good evening, children,” said Patience Needle. “Lovely to have you with us again. Now it’s time for me to show you to your rooms.”

“How’s Colin?” asked Lucinda. “Are his burns okay?”

The woman’s expression did not change. “He is nearly well already. Burns are easy for me to heal. Now come with me.”

Tyler fought to keep his voice friendly. “It’s okay. We remember how to get to our rooms, Mrs. Needle.”

Mrs. Needle smiled thinly. Her pale face gleamed like the moon in the frame of her black hair. “But you don’t have the same rooms this year. Now, come along, children, it’s getting late. Say goodnight to everyone.”

The main house at Ordinary Farm was a labyrinth of wooden floors, dusty, faded carpets, flickering light bulbs in empty halls, and countless locked doors, but it was clear that Mrs. Needle was indeed leading them somewhere different than where they had slept last year. For long minutes she glided before them like an apparition, holding a battery-operated storm lamp, then stopped at last in a corridor Tyler didn’t recognize.

“Here you are, children.”

“Isn’t this in your part of the house…?” Lucinda asked.

“Yes, Lucinda,” the housekeeper said in her crisp way. “It’s near my retiring room-my office, as you’d call it. That’s why I know you will be comfortable here. Sleep well.”

“Why can’t we stay in our old rooms?” Tyler asked.

“Because the decision has been made,” she said, voice less friendly than before. “I can keep a closer eye… pardon, I mean I can take better care of you here.”

The assigned bedrooms stood side by side and both looked out over what was perhaps a courtyard-it was too dark now to tell for sure, although one thing Tyler could make out was that they were several floors above the ground. Mrs. Needle snapped on the overhead light in first one room and then the next, revealing both to have dark wood paneling and flowered wallpaper from another century. The only modern thing in either room were the children’s suitcases, apparently brought up earlier. “Get ready for bed, now,” the Englishwoman said. “It is late.”

Tyler brushed his teeth and returned to his room. He wasn’t thrilled about having to change rooms-it had been hard enough to learn his way around the ever-confusing farmhouse the first time-but he was too tired and too full to worry about it. He was just thinking about wandering over to Lucinda’s room to discuss this eventful first day when he heard the lock in his door click. By the time he had jumped up and run to it he could hear Lucinda thumping on her own door in surprise and protest. Tyler rattled the knob but it wouldn’t turn and the door wouldn’t budge.

The witch had locked them in.

Angry but very tired, Lucinda sat on her bed and did her best to ignore Tyler banging around in his room, thumping the walls and door in frustration.

Okay, so they’d been locked in. She didn’t like it either, but they couldn’t do anything about it tonight, so why wouldn’t her brother just let her go to sleep?

Tyler’s room finally went quiet. Lucinda took a book out of her suitcase and settled back against the pile of pillows to read, an old novel of Mom’s called “The Singing Tree” about a Hungarian family during the First World War. The story was good and she was tired enough just to fall into it, so when someone knocked on her window it startled her so much she screamed and dropped the book.

It got weirder. Tyler was hanging upside down at her window like a huge bat, waving and grinning.

“You idiot!” she said as she jumped up to shoulder open the ancient window so he could climb in. She looked down. “It’s like three floors to the ground! You could have broken your neck!”

“You sound just like Mom,” he said. “There’s ivy all over the walls outside-it’s totally grown into the bricks, really easy to climb.” He sat up, his hair all kinds of wild and looking enormously pleased with himself. “Nobody’s going to lock me in.”

Lucinda found herself almost admiring his total irresponsibility. “You’re insane,” she said. “How are you going to get back?

Tyler sank to the floor and stretched out on his back. “It was pretty awesome, really. There’s a big moon, tonight-plenty of light for climbing. And this house…! I forgot how big it is. It just goes on and on-crazy, gigantic big…!” Tyler’s eyes narrowed. “What’s that?”

Lucinda sighed. It was like having a young dog around-sniffing, scratching, digging, chewing, always into something. “What’s what?”

“That.” He pointed at the ceiling above her dresser. “That square up there. Looks like a trap door or something.”

“Yeah, well, check it out tomorrow, Dora the Explorer. I’m tired.”

“No, really.” He sprang up and pulled out a couple of the dresser drawers. “Here, help me-keep this from tipping over… ”

“Tyler, no!” But it was useless, of course-he was already clambering up the dresser, making it sway ominously. She hurried forward just in time, wincing as she heard the wooden drawers creaking and protesting under his weight. When he reached the top of the dresser Tyler reached up and poked the rectangular ceiling panel, then poked it again. It gave a little.

“I knew it!”

“Knew what? That there was a heating duct up there?” But Lucinda was a little intrigued in spite of herself. Tyler pushed the wooden panel up and out of the way, exposing darkness. “Eew,” she said. “Probably full of spiders.”

“Give me your flashlight, Luce.”

“Where’s yours?”

“I dropped it when I was climbing on the roof.”

Lucinda sighed. “Good going.” She found the dopey pink flashlight Mom had given her and passed it up to Tyler. He gripped it in his teeth, then pulled himself up into the space above until he could rest his upper body on the edge and only his legs dangled down. “What do you see?” she asked. “Don’t let any spiders crawl down or I won’t be able to sleep in here.”

His voice was muffled. “Yeah, that makes sense. You’re on a farm with dragons as big as a jet plane and you’re worried about ordinary house spiders?”

“Spiders are creepier than dragons. What’s up there?”

“Mostly heating pipes or something… and insulation. Old empty boxes.” He sounded disappointed as he rattled things around.

“Don’t make so much noise!” she hissed, up into the dry, old-smelling air above her head.

Tyler’s face appeared in the opening. “It’s a big space, Luce. An attic.” He vanished, returned to his inspection. A long moment passed. “Wow. Actually, there’s a lot of stuff stacked right behind that heating pipe thing over there… ”

Then he fell silent. Lucinda listened for long moments, heart pounding. He was doing a good job of being quiet-too good. “Tyler?” she called.

“I found a cool-looking box up here, Luce. It’s like wood, and it’s got… labels all over it.”

“What do you mean, labels?”

“You know, like someone sent if from far away. Come stand under the hole and help me get it down.”

Despite her very strong desire not to handle anything that might have spider webs on it, Lucinda got on a chair and reached up, squinting her eyes in case anything jumped off at her. The box, when Tyler slid it down, was smaller and less heavy than she’d expected, about the size of an overnight bag, made out of pale, thick wood with rusted metal corners; Lucinda just managed to avoid getting scratched by the metal as she took it. Tyler jumped down.