“Look at this door handle, Beth,” I said.
“Okay…”
“If small people, or animals, lived up here they would be able to open these small doors. The handles were low enough so that even a smart housecat would have no problem working with them.”
“So you think the alchemist kept his smallest creations up here?”
“Yes,” I said. “And his most dangerous ones he locked down in the dungeon.”
By the time it was dark and the first stars poked out of the night sky we made it out onto the roof. The cool fresh air felt good. I wondered if Jake had made it home all right, and if things would get back to normal after this all blew over in a few weeks. Somehow, I didn’t think they would. Somehow, I knew that Vater’s return changed everything. I kept these thoughts to myself, however, not wanting to scare Beth any further.
We closed the small square door behind us and stretched in the snow, breathing the fresh night air. Right now the fresh air felt great, but I knew that after a few more hours out here we would be freezing.
“Connor,” said Beth.
“Mmm?”
“I think there’s something on the roof with us.”
A hulking shape moved down from the nearest roof peak and came toward us. We scrambled away. All I could think of was one thing: Vater had found us.
“Wait, children, waits you,” said a voice. It sounded strange, and had a hissing quality to it. I knew that voice and I stopped, but with one leg up to run. It was Waldheim’s voice.
“Bit cold up here for a walk, Dean,” I said as cheerily as possible. He was in lizard form and it must have been freezing up here for him. He was wrapped in heavy coats.
“Indeed,” he said. “I’ve waited up here for hours. I expected you to end up here at some point, after that adventure that left you on the balcony yesterday.”
I nodded. He came closer and we stepped back, out of lunging range.
He halted and looked at us. “Normally, I’m only in this forms when I’m angry, I know, and today is no exception.”
We watched him warily as he rose up, standing on his hindlegs with his tail balancing him from behind like a meercat.
“But I’m not angry with you, childrens.”
We watched as he pulled a backpack out of his coat and held it out to us. We didn’t come forward.
“Don’t blames you for being wary. A good instinct for any of our kind.” He tossed the backpack at our feet in the snow. “You’ll find some supplies there, a flashlight, some rope, food, a blankets. It isn’t much. Perhaps it will help.”
“Thanks,” we said.
“Harsh lessons you’re learning for ones so young,” he said and sighed. As he sighed, his eyes lost some of their yellow luster and his teeth shrank. He turned around and headed back over a roof peak.
“Good luck,” he said, and he was gone.
We dug into the backpack and were delighted to find sandwiches and a thermos of hot coco. Beth immediately pulled out the blanket and draped it over herself. I let her take it without protest. After all, I could always grow a coat of fur if I became too cold.
But still, I kept thinking about the blanket. Beth pulled it around her tightly, and I rubbed at the soft dark material. I looked around at the snowy rooftop. Slowly, I smiled.
“That isn’t your nice smile,” said Beth, eyeing me suspiciously. “Hands off the blanket, Connor.”
I shook my head, my smile turning into a grin. “I’ve got an idea.”
Chapter Thirty-Three
The moon came out full and bright. There is a full moon for four nights every twenty-eight days. Thirteen full moons each year. In our family, we always knew the phase of the moon, like some people always seem to know the weather forecast. I could feel the burn of the moonlight on my skin. It made me feel kind of hot and itchy, despite the bitterly cold night air.
Beth didn’t feel any of this warmth. She continued to complain about the loss of the blanket right up until when Danny and Thomas came out of one of those small square doors and ran out into the crusty snow drifts. They spotted us almost immediately and Danny gave a single, loud bark.
Beth was in position behind me, closer to the door. She ran down the nearest slope toward me. When she got to the bottom, I gritted my teeth as she leapt across the flat section. It really was an amazing leap. She had told me she could do it, but I hadn’t really expected her to make a seven foot jump like that while sliding down a roof on bad footing. But she did, and landed easily on the far side.
Seeing Beth so close got the dogs excited, and they came on barking.
We turned and scrambled away, up a roof peak. We got to the top and turned to look back. There was a sort of valley between them and us now with the flat bottom that Beth had leapt over. Danny and Thomas didn’t hesitate. They rushed down the slope to the bottom. It was only at the last second that Danny hesitated. Maybe he saw the grin on my face. I couldn’t help but grin down at them while I watched.
The trap worked perfectly on Thomas, he went right into the blanket that we had stretched over an opening in the roof and dusted with snow. The ground seemed to swallow him up. He gave one of those “ Yipe-Yipe-Yipe,” cries that young dogs do when surprised or hurt. He fell two floors, wrapped in a frosty blanket, and crashed down into an atrium below us.
Danny had a bit more time to try to avoid the trap. He slid down the roof on his butt, not able to stop himself. What he managed to do was leap at the last moment across the hole to our side. He scrabbled for a grip on the slippery roof, something dogs aren’t well built for. That’s when I came down the roof to meet him.
He snarled at me, giving me a mouth full of fangs. I snarled back, and to my surprise and his, my mouth was full of fangs too. I thought for a second my vision had blurred, but in a moment I realized it was the long white whiskers that had sprouted out of my face, which now grew into a snout. Just as Danny got his footing on our side of the roof, I reached him, and I gave him a hard shove with my forepaws.
He toppled backward off the roof and down into the atrium. The two growling figures scrambled amongst the bushes that had broken their fall.
“Are they hurt?” asked Beth, coming up behind me to peer down at them.
The two of them circled below us like dogs at the bottom of a tree. Danny limped noticeably. They looked up at me and growled something unpleasant to each other.
I kicked a load of snow down into their faces and gave a whoop of laughter. “They’re fine.”
Beth gave me a concerned look. I know she wasn’t quite sure what to make of this rodent version of Connor.
“Come on,” I said, reaching out a paw to her. She looked at it for just a second. Reluctance showed in her eyes. But then she took my paw and I pulled her up the roof slope. My claws could dig into the snow and climb the roof faster than I ever could have as a human.
“You did a great job making that trap, Connor,” she said, “That was very clever.”
“You did a great job as the bait. That was an amazing leap you made.”
“But what are we going to do now?” asked Beth. “They’ll just come back, with reinforcements.”
“I know,” I said. “It’s time to use that rope Waldheim gave us.”
Beth sucked in her breath and looked over the side. “It’s so far down, Connor.”
“Trust me.”
We made our way across the roof to the edge. It was the back of the mansion, closest to the woods. If we made it into the trees we could sneak back at any point during the night to win the race in the morning. Vater had not said we couldn’t leave the mansion, he had indicated very few rules, and so I wasn’t going to play by any assumed ones. I realized now that he had probably wanted it that way.
We heard a tiny door slam somewhere.
“Someone’s on the roof with us,” hissed Beth.