Summer in Orcus

CHAPTER ONE

Once upon a time there was a girl named Summer, whose mother loved her very very very much.

Her mother loved her so much that she was not allowed to play outside where someone might grab her, nor go away on sleepovers where there might be an accident or suspicious food. She was not allowed to go away to camp, where she might be squashed by a horse or bitten by diseased mosquitoes, and she most certainly was not allowed to go on the Ferris Wheel at the carnival because (her mother said) the people who maintain the machinery are lazy and not very educated and might get drunk and forget to put a bolt back on and the entire thing could come loose at any moment and fall down and kill everyone inside, and they should probably leave the carnival immediately before it happened.

Occasionally, when Summer expressed a desire to do some of these very dangerous things, her mother would get quite upset. She would grab Summer’s chin and stare deep into her eyes, as if she could see straight down to Summer’s heart, and say, I’m only saying this because I love you. You’re all I’ve got, and I can’t let anything happen to you. You understand that, right?

And Summer would nod and say that she understood, because what else could she do?

Her mother went through weeks when she was worse than usual—barging into the bathroom to make sure Summer wasn’t drowning in the bathtub (she was nearly TWELVE! And she could dog-paddle really well, the swim instructor said so!)—or walking through the house, calling her name frantically, and when Summer dropped whatever she was doing and came running to see what the problem was, her mother would only say, I just wanted to know where you were, and go back to cooking or working on her computer. It was very difficult.

Summer had never had a father, and wasn’t entirely sure what you did with one, and certainly her mother never had anything good to say about the one Summer didn’t have. But she sometimes thought that it would be nice to have a brother or a sister, not because she particularly liked other children but because it would have been nice to have somebody to share the burden of her mother’s love. If there had been two of them, maybe they could have taken turns. Surely her mother wouldn’t have the energy to keep barging in on both of them in the bathtub.

Unfortunately, there was only Summer.

It is hardly surprising, given this sort of treatment, that Summer was very timid (at least at home) and soon learned to stop asking to ride the Ferris Wheel or go on sleepovers. But it is also not very surprising that in the secret depths of her heart, where her mother could not go, she had vowed to make her escape.

She didn’t want to hurt her mother. During good times, her mother baked cookies and sang songs and showed her how to tie her shoes and helped her with her homework when it was hard (and sometimes when it wasn’t, which was a little bit annoying.) She just wanted her mother to love her a little bit less, like a normal person, so that she could go to camp and not have to leave the carnival early.

Sometimes when her mother grabbed her chin and stared into her eyes, Summer wondered if she could see these traitorous feelings lurking down in the depths. It seemed as if she ought to be able to, because the feelings were so strong, as if they were big rebellious slogans wallpapered around the walls of her heart, saying I THINK I COULD PROBABLY RIDE A HORSE IF IT WAS NICE and I AM NOT AFRAID OF THE FERRIS WHEEL.

But her mother never said anything about it, and so Summer went on thinking these thoughts, and over time she thought them more and more.

One day in spring, when she was playing in the back garden, a house walked into the alley.

The house was very clearly walking, because the roof would go up when it took a step and then sink back down at the bottom of the step, then bob up again. Summer couldn’t see its feet because there was a high wall around her back garden, but she could not think of any other explanation.

The roof of the house was small and sharply peaked, with a jutting gable over the front door. Summer stared at it, open-mouthed, then ran to the gate in the wall that led to the alley.

It was a wooden gate, higher than Summer’s head, and it had a big metal latch with a padlock through it. Summer’s mother would have bricked up the gate entirely if she could have, so that criminals couldn’t come through it, but she had to leave another exit in case the house burned down and they couldn’t get out of the front door. She had compromised with the padlock, and had also told Summer seventeen times that she was never, ever to open the door, particularly not if anyone knocked and asked to be let in. Since Summer had no idea where the key was, she couldn’t have done so anyway, and so was spared being told an eighteenth time.

But even if the gate didn’t open, there was a large crack between the hinges and the wall, and Summer put her shoulder against the bricks and peered out through it at the house.

The house had gigantic scaly legs like a bird. They went up past Summer’s shoulders and they ended in clawed feet as big as bathtubs. The round scales on the front of each leg were the size of automobile tires.

As she watched, the house took another step forward. The roof went up and came bobbing down. The house’s foot came down on an old soda can in the alley and it went crink! and was crushed flat.

Whoa, said Summer.

The house heard her. It stopped, and instead of taking another step forward it put its other foot down beside the first one and hunkered down on its heels.

The underside of the house was now about three feet from the ground. The bird legs didn’t seem to attach to the house in any way that Summer could see. They vanished instead into a tangle of pipes, which were probably plumbing, but which looked suspiciously scaly, as if they had also been made out of chicken feet.

A little faucet, the sort you would attach a hose to, stuck out from the side of the house nearest Summer. Instead of a knob with spokes, it had a little skull on it, no bigger than Summer’s palm. The skull’s jaws were open in a huge grin, and it was turned sideways so that it looked rather silly as well as alarming.

It wasn’t a very large house. It couldn’t have more than two rooms in it, one upstairs and one down, and even those wouldn’t be any larger than Summer’s own bedroom. Even so, the sides of the house came very close to the walls on either side of the alley. If it walked by the gate, Summer would be able to fit her hand through the gap at the hinges and touch the faucet as it went past.

She twisted around so that she could look down the alley in the other direction. Surely someone was going to come along any moment—a delivery driver or one of the people who parked in the alley sometimes—and get out and complain about the house blocking the road?

But nobody did. Summer took a quick look behind her at the back porch to make sure that her mother hadn’t come out.

One of the windows of the house flew open and the shutters banged back. Not here! said a woman’s voice from inside the house. The next yard over, fool house!

The house stamped its feet and settled even lower to the ground.

Gah! The woman reached through the window and slapped the house’s outer wall. She was wearing long black gloves with the fingers cut out of them. The next one! I’ll have you breaded and fried and made into colossal drumsticks!

The bottom of the house hit the concrete of the alley with a thud.

Saint Sunday’s bones! cried the woman, pulling her hand back, and then she said a great many other things, some of which were extremely rude. Summer paid careful attention to these and committed many of them to memory.

After a moment, the front door opened, and the woman came out.

She was very old and very stout. Her black gloves went up to the elbow and the ends were frayed and unraveling. Her dress was gray and shapeless and she wore a tall purple hat like a top hat, with a live salamander on top of it. Summer could tell that the salamander was alive because its throat pulsed as it breathed, and it blinked its eyes very slowly in the sunlight.

She was leaning on a cane but could stand without it, because as soon as she stepped out of the door she turned around and whacked the house across the gutters with the cane.

The house rattled its pipes and slammed all its windows shut with a hmmmph! sound.

Glorified chicken coop! I’ll take you apart and sell you for scrap! cried the old woman. You’re not my first house, you know! I had a marvelous cottage that padded about on leopard feet, and I had it shot and stuffed and turned into a storage shed for a much more minor infraction than this!

Summer could not help but feel sorry for the leopard-footed house and made a small noise of dismay.

The old woman whipped around, scowling, and Summer did not pull back nearly quickly enough.

Aha! she cried, stomping toward the gate. Summer backed away hurriedly, but although she could not see the old woman, she could hear the click of her shoes and the tap of her cane. I see you there! Spying on me, were you?

I was not! said Summer, indignant. I was just looking! I’ve never seen a house like that before!

There was a long pause, during which Summer remembered that she was never ever ever in ten million years on pain of death supposed to talk to strangers, and the old woman went hmmmph! rather like the house.

Well, said the old woman grudgingly, I suppose that’s true enough. There aren’t any other houses like mine. What’s your name?

I’m not supposed to talk to strangers, said Summer, and because that felt horribly rude, she added, I’m sorry. She looked back over her shoulder, but her mother had not come out to demand to know who she was talking to.

If you’re waiting for someone to come and make introductions, you’ll be waiting a long time, snapped the old woman. "Besides, it’s not strangers you need to worry about—it’s the ones you know that get you. She came closer and peered through the crack in the gate. Summer could see one bright black eye and the side of her nose. I’m Baba Yaga."

I’m Summer, said Summer.

Hmm. Suits you. What do you think of my house?

It’s a very interesting house, said Summer, but I don’t think you should hit it. It’s not very nice.

The house rattled its pipes in a loud, satisfied manner, and Baba Yaga cackled. Fair enough! She turned away from the gate to say, over her shoulder, I see why you stopped.

The house preened a little.

Baba Yaga put her eye back to the gap in the hinge. Open the gate, will you? she said. Whispering through cracks is all very good for foolish lovers and eloping brides, but you’re too young and I’m too old and have had far too many husbands besides.

I can’t, said Summer. I mean, there’s a padlock. It’s only a little bike lock, but it’s still locked. And my mother would never let me. And how many husbands have you had?

Plenty, said Baba Yaga. Good and bad and most points in between, starting when I wasn’t much older than you and had less sense than the gods gave geese. But never mind that. A padlock, eh?

Summer heard the crack of her cane against the wooden gate, and Baba Yaga chanted, Open, lock! Open, bar!

The padlock twisted neatly open and fell off the latch. The gate swung silently open.

Summer took another step back. Baba Yaga was rather alarming (if quite interesting) and if her mother saw her talking to a strange old woman in the back garden, with the gate open, Summer was going to be in more trouble than anyone had ever been in in the history of the world.

Baba Yaga stood framed between the walls with her house squatting behind her. The salamander on her hat fixed Summer with eyes like wet pebbles.

Are you frightened? asked the old woman. You should be, you know. I am as old as sinning and twice as dangerous. I drink my beer from the skulls of heroes.

Summer did not know that women drank beer. Her mother never drank beer. She called it nasty, low stuff and said that she’d never allow it in the house.

Summer said as much to Baba Yaga.

The old woman’s eyes narrowed. You’re dangerously ignorant, girl, she said. It is not your fault at the moment, though if you grow much older, it will be.

Summer looked back toward the house.

Hmmm, said Baba Yaga. Stand, girl, and let me know you.

Baba Yaga took two steps forward, digging her cane into the ground. Summer knew that she should run away, run back to the house and get her mother and call the police immediately, but her feet seemed to be stuck to the ground. She tried to lift one up and it stayed stuck, as if the soles of her sneakers had turned to glue.

Baba Yaga came up right next to her, close enough that Summer could smell her. She didn’t smell like an old woman, like cold cream and antiseptic, the way Summer’s grandmother smelled in the home. She smelled like an animal, like a cat’s fur, like sharp herbs and old books.

The salamander on her hat twitched its tail restlessly back and forth.

The old woman stared into Summer’s eyes, down deep, deeper than her mother ever saw. Summer could feel Baba Yaga looking all the way down into her, into the chamber with her thoughts written on the walls.

Well, said Baba Yaga, taking a step back, and Summer could move again.

She could have run, but she didn’t. She felt dizzy. She blinked several times and rubbed her forehead. She could hear crows cawing behind her eyes.

All right! Baba Yaga called over her shoulder to the house. You were right, you overgrown lump of yesterday’s architecture!

She turned back to Summer and poked her in the chest with the tip of her cane. Tomorrow. You come to the house tomorrow, and I’ll grant you your heart’s desire, unless I’m in a bad mood, in which case I’ll probably suck the marrow out of your bones. Either way. Tomorrow, you hear?

And she turned and stumped out of the garden, leaning on her cane. The gate slammed shut behind her and the padlock clambered up the wooden crosspiece on the gate and swung itself out to the latch.

The bird-footed house stood up. It paced down the alley, two yards down, to the house with a FOR SALE sign out front. Then it rose up high on one leg and stepped daintily over the wall.

For a moment it stood there, very tall against the sky. An upstairs window sash rose an inch or two, and the house winked at Summer.

Then the house settled down on its heels, and that was that, at least until tomorrow.

CHAPTER TWO

Summer spent most of that evening trying to decide on her heart’s desire.

For a number of years—at least since she turned ten—she had wanted to be a shape-shifter, or if that wasn’t possible, at least to understand the language of animals. But being a shape-shifter would be best. Imagine being able to turn into any animal that ever lived! She could go anywhere—fly like a bird, see with her ears like a bat, swim in the water like a fish. She could talk to the oozy newts along the foundation of the house and the alley cats that strolled along the top of the fence. It would be incredible.

When other girls at school were mean to her, she could turn into a wolf—a bear—a wooly mammoth!—and trample them to pieces, or at least pretend that she was going to, because if it came right down to it, Summer was not sure that she wanted to trample anybody.

(This may seem an unusual ambition, but Summer had read a great many books about magic and animals and changing your shape. Summer’s mother believed that books were safe things that kept you inside, which only shows how little she knew about it, because books are one of the least safe things in the world.)

Summer had just about decided to ask Baba Yaga to make her a shape-shifter—surely someone with a walking house would not find that difficult!—when it occurred to her that while it was all very well to think about trampling the members of the fifth-grade class, if somebody saw her, there would undoubtedly be trouble. Turning into a woolly mammoth was bound to get you detention or suspended or even expelled.

If you were expelled, your parents had to teach you at home. Summer would never get to leave the house except with her mother. She would never get to be the person she was at school, when her mother wasn’t looking, again. (Summer’s mother, in addition to being wrong about books, would also have been quite surprised to learn that her daughter was a very different person at school than she was at home. This is a common problem among parents.)

Summer poked at her dinner with her fork, chasing bits of corn around the plate and teasing a few strays out of the mashed potatoes.

If somebody found out you could turn into animals, what would happen? It would be awesome if they asked you to talk to real animals and find out what was wrong with them—maybe tell endangered species what to do to not be so endangered any more, maybe warn them about cars and people with guns—but Summer had a gloomy notion that it wouldn’t be like that. She had read enough books to know that she’d probably wind up in a government lab somewhere, with people poking her with needles and hooking her up to big monitors covered in jaggy lines.

This was definitely not her heart’s desire.

You’re awfully quiet, said her mother. What are you thinking about so hard?

Summer looked up guiltily. Nothing.

Did something happen at school?

No. Summer took a hasty mouthful of mashed potatoes.

So what were you thinking about?

Um…

Summer knew when she’d taken too long to answer because her mother’s smile got brittle around the edges and the skin under her eyes went funny and tight. Fine. Don’t tell your mother, then. She turned away from the table.

I wish I was an orphan, thought Summer, and was so immediately horrified at her own thoughts that she said out loud, I was thinking about being a shape-shifter and whether people would want to poke you with needles and stuff to find out how you did it.

Oh, Summer, her mother said, and laughed, and that was all right then.

She cried after dinner. This happened sometimes. Summer looked up and saw that her mother had put her face in her hands and that meant that it would be one of those nights.

She knew her job by now. She put her arm around her mother’s shoulders and said, It’ll be all right. Then her mother said, No, it won’t be, and Summer said, What’s wrong? and her mother talked about how bad her job was and how she was probably going to lose it because no one appreciated her and one of her co-workers was talking about her behind her back.

It was all very normal. Both of them knew their role and performed it, like actors in a long-running play. As long as she could remember, Summer’s role had never really changed. It was always a little frightening, but it was also always the same. She could perform her part with only half her attention, while the rest of her thought about her heart’s desire.

I know he’s out to get me.

That’s not nice of him. Why are people like that? I could be a bat! I could finally find out if sonar’s like hearing things or if it’s like seeing things…

People are terrible, most of them. They never appreciate anything. And after I helped him with all those files!

She cried a bit more. Summer patted her back and thought about sonar. Maybe she could be a dolphin after she was a bat, and compare the two?

It’s all right, Mom. It’ll be okay.

No, it won’t…it’s always like this…

When the storm had passed, there was only the final bit of the ritual, where Summer said, I love you and her mother said, At least someone does! and made a kind of pained half-laugh. That meant it was nearly over. Every now and again it would all start up again, but those nights were rare. Summer hoped very much this wouldn’t be one of them. She had other things to think about, important things, like echolocation and dolphins and bats.

Summer laid in bed that night, staring at the darkened ceiling, and wondered if she’d meant it when she’d thought, I wish I was an orphan. What if you didn’t need to tell Baba Yaga what you wanted? What if she could look all the way down into your heart and pull it out without any help?

What if her heart’s desire really was to be an orphan?

She didn’t think it was. She loved her mother. She would have cried for ages if her mother died.

On the other hand, she was eleven years old and her mother still bought safety scissors and had childproof plastic caps on all the electric sockets.  She didn’t want her mother not to love her, she just would have liked things to be…different.

Thinking like this was like trying to walk down a hallway in the dark, feeling around with her foot for each step, except the hallway was inside her chest and she wasn’t sure where she was going at all.

She fell asleep, still wondering what her heart’s desire could be.

School dragged on forever, and Summer didn’t raise her hand once. She was usually a pretty good student so the teacher didn’t call on her or embarrass her in class, but Mrs. Selena did give her a rather thoughtful look when she ran out the door to recess.

She was not allowed to take the bus home because other kids on the bus might try to give her drugs, so she waited by the curb with her bookbag until her mother pulled up with the car to drive her home. Summer spent the ride home staring out the window and not talking, but fortunately her mother was listening to a radio program and didn’t notice.

Her mother went to work on her computer, and Summer went out to play in the garden. She looked immediately over the wall and saw the roof of the bird-footed house.

She waited ten minutes, to make sure that her mother wasn’t going to get up from the computer, then went to the gate.

The padlock had locked itself again, and Summer wasn’t sure what she should do. She didn’t think she could climb over the gate, and if she tried to go back through the house, her mother would probably notice it.

Still, if it had worked for Baba Yaga yesterday, maybe there was still a little magic left on it…

Open, lock, she whispered to the padlock, putting her lips right down next to it. Open, bar! Oh please, please open!

The lock made a cheerful little click! and slid open.

Oh, thank you! said Summer. Good lock! She put it into her pocket and looked around quickly. She was probably going to get in horrible trouble, but if Baba Yaga could grant her heart’s desire—that was worth it, wasn’t it?

She slipped the gate open and pulled it most of the way shut behind her, just enough so the latch wouldn’t catch. Then she pelted down the alleyway to Baba Yaga’s house.

The gate was open. Summer peered around the edge of the wall, then slipped into the yard.

The house was standing several feet above the ground, scratching idly at the grass. There were deep gouges in the lawn. When it saw Summer, it clapped all its windows and plopped down onto the ground.

Now that she had to actually walk up to the door, she felt so nervous that she was almost queasy, as if someone had dropped a brick into her stomach.

What if Baba Yaga hadn’t been joking yesterday, and she was in a bad mood and sucked the marrow out of Summer’s bones?

What if it turned out that Summer was a horrible person and her heart’s desire was an awful thing that nobody should want?

She halted halfway to the door and pressed her hands to her chest.

She hadn’t noticed yesterday that there was a skull on the front door, right in the middle, where a normal person might hang a wreath.

The house lifted its back end up and inched forward a little, like a dog wanting to play. This must have made the floors tilt inside, because Summer heard a banging and sliding of furniture and Baba Yaga yelled, Fool house! I’ll trade you in for one with turtle feet and a three-car garage!  The house sank back down, but wiggled forward a little more, until the front door was only a few feet away.

The skull on the door wasn’t human, or at least it wasn’t entirely human. It had big canine teeth like a dog and long antlers like a deer.

Was it a door knocker? Was she supposed to grab the dangling jawbone and rap it against the door?