The only thing that niggled at the back of her mind was that trouble always seemed to pop up, eventually. Trouble in the form of extremely evil beasts and monsters from the dark side that were always circling, just out of sight, ready to pounce. Willa resolved to stay vigilant and watch for any signs of them. She clung to a vague feeling that, after the last battle on Hallowe’en night, she and her friends could handle nearly anything if they stood together.
This was the state of things when the snow came. In mid-December it began to fall, more snow than the town had seen in many years. It drifted down, soft and silent, all night long, and the sun rose on sparkling snowbanks and snow piled high on every available surface: roofs, cars, fences, power lines, railings, posts, clotheslines, mailboxes. The scene was jaw-droppingly beautiful.
That afternoon, Willa shuffled through the snow, creating two parallel tracks all the way to Eldritch Manor and enjoying the puffs her breath made in the air. She entered the front hall, stamping the snow from her boots, and walked right into the chandelier. As usual. She bonked into that thing every time she came into the house.
“Aaargh!” She reached up to steady it and looked into the parlour. Horace was gazing out the window.
“Hi, Horace. Isn’t the snow amazing?”
“It wasn’t me,” he blurted, starting a little.
“What wasn’t you?”
“Nothing.” Horace pursed his lips like he was holding in a secret.
“Horace … what have you been up to?” said Willa with a smile. “You look guilty of something.”
Horace looked out the window again, wincing. “I was fiddling with some weather charms, but I really don’t think… This is probably not my doing,” he ended quickly.
Willa laughed. “If it is your doing, I’m impressed! I love it.”
Horace looked very pleased. “You don’t think it’s too much? I just wanted a picturesque dusting of snow, not record-setting heaps of it.”
“You don’t know your own strength,” Willa said, pulling an afghan off an armchair and draping it over his shoulders. Horace grinned brightly.
“Hmph!” tinkled a little voice behind them. “I HATE the snow!”
Willa turned to see Mab sitting in the bowl on the mantle, knitting away.
“Hello Mab, how’s it going?” Willa walked over and lifted the scarf, which was about the length of her arm. “You’ve been busy!”
Mab paused to flex her fingers. “I have to knit to keep warm! Wretched winter!” She gave Horace a nasty look.
“It most likely has nothing to do with anything I was doing,” he protested weakly.
Skritch skritch skritch. Willa turned. Roshni was pacing toward her, bobbing her head excitedly.
“Hello, Roshni.” Willa smoothed the feathers on the bird’s head, and Roshni nuzzled into her side, like a cat. Then the bird hopped over to the fireplace, dark and cold. She breathed on the log lying there and fanned it with her wings. There was a fwoomp and a flash of light as the log burst into flame.
Willa clapped her hands. “Bravo! I didn’t know you could do that!”
Roshni hopped up and down, squawking. The log gave off a nice amount of heat, and Horace drew near to warm his hands. Willa made a mental note to gather more firewood, but as it turned out, that single log burned continuously until the spring, so there was no need for more.
The merry blaze transformed the parlour into the social centre of the house. Baz curled up happily on the braided rug in front of the fire while the others sat and chatted. Pots of tea, scones, and bowls of soup emerged periodically from the kitchen, courtesy of the dwarves, who slept there in hammocks strung from the ceiling. All in all, life at the house was pretty cozy.
No one had heard from Miss Trang since the snow started, but one afternoon she opened her bedroom door and started across the front hall toward the parlour. By now she was moving so slowly, it looked like the trip would take two or three days. Willa was worried about her. Her skin was weirdly shiny, you could see the faint shapes of scales in it, and her face seemed long and stretched, her eyes pulled back to the sides of her head, but nobody else took any notice of these changes. They simply stepped around her and carried on with their business.
One day Willa entered the house, stepped around the chandelier and promptly tripped over a large creature lying on the floor. Willa put her hand over her mouth to stifle a scream as she scrambled away from it. She sat for a moment, her back against the wall, staring at it in horror. It was about the size and length of a cow, but it was covered in scales and tapered to a long tail. Its head was tucked out of sight, and its body rose and fell gently as it slept on. Willa took a deep breath and stood on shaky legs. She tiptoed to the foot of the stairs and leaned over until she could see the creature’s face. With a start she realized it was Miss Trang.
Miss Trang’s face had stretched into a long snout, though her grey hair remained, still pulled into a bun at the back of her head. Hibernation had left her in semi-dragon, semi-human form. Willa found it creepy, but Horace said it was perfectly normal.
“Hibernation. Standard reptilian behaviour, nothing to be worried about. Happens every winter,” he assured her.
Thankfully, Miss Trang wasn’t full dragon size, but she was still as big as a sofa and formed a significant obstacle in the hall. The dwarves worked as a team to shift her closer to the wall so that Belle could get her wheelchair around her to enter the parlour. Everyone else walked around or clambered over her. Nothing, not even being stepped on, disturbed her sleep, and soon Miss Trang’s inert figure on the floor became as familiar as a piece of furniture.
Chapter Four
Wintry shenanigans
The snow continued to fall, despite Horace’s hand-wringing and embarrassment. As the town got used to the weather, people emerged from their houses to enjoy it, especially the neighbourhood kids. Tengu joined them, organizing the children into two armies, with fortifications and a large snowball arsenal.
Over the next week, Tengu tumbled in at dinner time soaked and frozen — feet numb, snow down his neck, his ears and nose red, and his eyes bright. The more he played with the kids, the younger he seemed to be. He’ d sit on the comatose Miss Trang while Willa pulled his boots off, and entertain her with lively stories of the day’s exploits.
“They call me the General,” he told Willa proudly.
On Christmas Eve, after a big dinner, the dwarves served up eggnog and hot toddies in the parlour. Simple holly garlands were strung everywhere; they were even draped over the snoozing form of Miss Trang in the hallway, and a string of lights ran over her shoulders and across her snout. Willa was nervous about what she might think if she woke up, but she showed no signs of doing so.
Lit by the fire and candlelight, good cheer prevailed. Horace sang in his quavery voice about desert sands. Tengu shared some haiku he’d written. Mab floated in the middle of the room and sang a song of knights and ladies and courtly love. Emboldened by the rum toddies, Robert performed a soft-shoe dance routine, during which only one small end table was crushed. Baz didn’t usually go in for performing, but tonight she climbed up on the back of the sofa, stood on one foot, and balanced three cups and saucers on her nose. The fact that they then fell and smashed only added to the fun. The dwarves took turns reciting stanzas of a very long and gruesome epic poem about warriors dismembering monsters and vice versa.
As the candles burned low, Belle ended the evening with a song, during which the whole group fell into a contented silence. The song was quite long, but the next day Willa could not for the life of her remember what it was about. She suspected Belle had put them into a trance.
As she walked home that gorgeously dark wintry night, Willa knew