The butler gave the front door one last futile wrench before turning and charging past me. "The rear entrance," he shouted. "Through the kitchen." He held open the sitting room door and ushered out Mrs Patterson and Milly, leading us all into the kitchen. I slammed the door to the hallway behind us, breathing deeply as I watched Mister Patterson wrestle with the back door.
He turned back to us, eyes wide. "It won't open," he said.
A cold draught whipped round my arms and legs, followed by a series of bangs from around the room. I looked up to see every cupboard and drawer in the room slam open. "Get out of here now," I shouted.
The others ran past me as knives, plates and other assorted implements flew across the room, propelled by invisible forces. I yelped as a knife grazed my arm and then dived into the hallway, pulling the door shut behind me. Maxwell helped me to my feet and we followed the others up the stairs. "Why not break open a window to get out?" I shouted.
"Tried that," yelled back Mister Patterson. "The shutters are stuck tight." The kitchen door banged open, discouraging me from any further discourse.
As we ascended the stairs I felt a sluggishness in my limbs, as though my body were rebelling against advancing any further. And yet to surrender to this urge and turn back was not possible. Whilst I knew that there could be no one behind me, I could not shake the feeling of being pursued, my neck and back itching with that particular base sensation which afflicts those hunted by a beast bigger and quicker than them.
I chanced a look behind us and was shocked to see a small figure standing at the foot of the stairs. Even though the shadows were limited I was unable to make out anything more than the vague form of the individual, save that from its size it was clearly a young child. But I could not discern whether it was a boy or a girl. Emanating from the shadowy figure was a sense of malice so complete that I feared I could sense it wanting to tear me limb from limb.
"Is your daughter up there?" I called to the Pattersons.
"She is," came the reply. "Why?"
"It is just--" I looked back down the stairs. "Nothing," I said, staring at the once-again empty hallway. Maxwell ushered me upwards, to where Mister Patterson and the butler were frantically trying to force open doors under the impassive gaze of Milly, who stood unmoving in her panicked mother's arms.
A rhythmic humming came to my ears, a tune which I recognised but could not place in all the chaos. I turned to see the faint outline of a little girl standing at the top of the stairs, waving a doll around while she sang to herself in a voice which was muffled as though it came to my ears through a thick sheet. As I watched, I realised that the tune was 'Ring O' Ring O' Roses' and for a second was transported back to my childhood, playing in a dark, empty room on my own while my parents entertained guests downstairs. Now, as then, I felt the walls closing in on me; thick, impassive barriers trapping me and holding me in.
I was shocked out of my trance by the girl throwing herself backwards down the stairs. "No!" I shouted as I darted forwards and then stopped, frozen by the sight in front of me. Instead of seeing the girl falling I was confronted with a group of shadowy children, advancing slowly up the stairs whilst singing in that terrible muffled voice.
"We really need to get out of here," I shouted. I turned to see Maxwell and N'yotsu watching over my shoulder.
N'yotsu nodded and then marched down the corridor. "Stand aside," he said to Mister Patterson and the butler. With one shove of his shoulder the door gave way and swung open.
"How did you...?" said the butler.
"Just get in," said N'yotsu, beckoning us through.
N'yotsu slammed the door behind us and I was relieved to note that there was no sign of anything supernatural in what was to all accounts an extremely normal bedroom.
Maxwell rubbed his chin. "Does anyone else have the feeling that we have been shepherded here?"
I glared at him and then stomped over to the far wall to regain my composure.
After a few uneventful minutes in the mundane and highly personal surroundings of the bedroom I started to come to my senses. I realised that I had been behaving like a child jumping at the thought of monsters under the bed. The fact that the young girl, Milly, was completely unmoved by everything simply served to increase my sense of shame. Indeed she remained totally inscrutable, just like the porcelain doll which remained clutched in her hands.
I turned to her parents. "Are you all right?" I asked them. Mrs Patterson looked up at me with red rimmed eyes and tear stained cheeks, which was all the answer I needed. "Has this happened before?" I asked Mister Patterson.
"It has, although not nearly as intense as this," he said.
"So when did it begin?" I asked, and then flinched at another bang from outside the door to the room. Thankfully the chaos showed no sign of intruding -- for the time being, at least.
"It was about a month ago," he said. "Just around the time that--" he stopped short at a warning glance from his wife.
"What?" I asked.
He sighed. "It was around the time that Milly's Governess disappeared."
"Disappeared? Scared off by all of this, you mean?" I asked.
"Well..." he started, clearly looking for some excuse or means to divert me from this line of questioning. I was readying myself to press the matter further but before I could do so Milly spoke up.
"I killed her," she said, matter-of-factly.
Our stunned silence was broken by Mrs Patterson letting out a shrill laugh. She stopped as abruptly as she had started, with a look of fear aimed at her husband.
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"My friends needed someone to play with," Milly said, sitting her doll neatly on the floor. "So I killed her."
"I don't understand," I said. "Why would you kill her? What did she do?"
"Don't listen to her," said Mister Patterson. "She's a lonely girl, prone to flights of fancy..."
I ignored him and squatted down in front of the girl. "Milly," I said. "This is very important. Are you telling me the truth?"
"Of course," she said, bending the doll's arm and putting it up to its mouth, as though it were drinking from an invisible cup.
"But I do not understand why you would have killed your Governess," I said.
"Because otherwise my friends couldn't play with her," she said. The doll took another sip from the imaginary cup.
I felt a chill. "Your friends," I said, not wanting to know the answer but feeling compelled to ask anyway. "Who are they?"
"Why, you've met them already," Milly said, standing the doll up. "They talked to us in the sitting room. They're outside right now." She moved the doll in a slow dance and sang gently under her breath, to the tune of 'Ring a Ring o' Roses': "Will you play with me, will you play with me..."
I stood and turned to her parents, who had been watching this exchange in increasingly agitated silence. "You knew of this?" I asked.
"She is prone to flights of fancy," said Mister Patterson with a glance at his wife. "Young girls live in a world of their own..."
"Is it true?" I asked, as forcefully as I could muster.
The look shared between the two parents was all the answer I needed.
* * *
I walked over to join Maxwell and N'yotsu, who were huddled in whispered conference in the corner of the room. Both seemed to be treating the experience as an interesting experiment or test, rather than the terror that it undoubtedly was.
"Did you just hear that?" I asked.
"Yes, I am afraid I did," said N'yotsu. "The poor girl."
"The poor girl? What about her Governess?"
"Yes, yes," he said. "But the girl is clearly possessed by malign spirits. Look at her. No one of her age would be quite so composed in such circumstances."
There was some form of twisted sense to what he said, although I could not allow myself to follow his line of reasoning. "Spirits?" I asked. "You mean to say that this is all some form of supernatural... thing?" I gestured vaguely around us.
"You doubtless do not believe in such things," said N'yotsu. I inclined my head slightly in the affirmative. "In which case," he continued. "How do you explain away everything we have experienced this evening?"
Logic, once again, had me unstuck. I tried a different tack, trying to bring things back to the pragmatic. "Any ideas?"
"We believe that the manifestations may be linked to some form of disruption in the Aether," said Maxwell. "This is very exciting: it really it a whole new way of viewing the Aether. It would suggest that rather than a passive medium for light it is in fact--"
"Yes, yes, all very interesting," I snapped. "But what about our predicament? How are we going to get out of here?"
Maxwell shot me a wounded look, leaving N'yotsu to pick up the exchange. "You must realise that understanding the nature of the problem is the first step toward finding the solution."
"Granted," I said. "So if this all has something to do with the Aether, then presumably you have some magic device that will make it all better?"
They both looked at me blankly. All of Maxwell's equipment had been abandoned in the sitting room in our mad rush to escape the chaos downstairs.
"But--" started N'yotsu.
"No!" I exclaimed. "No more pseudo-scientific theories! You led us here; you got us all into this situation. And yet we don't know the first thing about you."
Maxwell placed a hand on my arm in an attempt to placate me, but I shrugged him off and continued to glare at N'yotsu.
"Your concerns are understandable," said N'yotsu in a calm voice. "But I can assure you that I have no dishonourable intent--"
"How do you know?" I asked. "You did not even know your own name until an hour ago!"
"That is a fair challenge. All I can do is assure you that I mean none of you any ill. I will find a resolution to all this."
"Everything resolves itself, one way or the other," I shot back. "Death is a resolution, of sorts, but not one I care to explore. Before you go back to your academic discussions, might I remind you that it is blowing a gale inside the house, while we are locked up in a room with a homicidal infant and her accomplice parents!" I hissed this last bit, hoping that the words were masked by the noises from outside.
"I must implore you to remain calm," said N'yotsu.
"Calm!" I mocked. The concept was ludicrous, given our predicament. Then I realised something. "Your scar," I said. "Where has it gone?"
"What scar?" asked N'yotsu.
"When we found you you had a deep gash to your forehead. Max, do you remember?" I asked my brother, who nodded. We both peered at N'yotsu in the half-light. His skin was unblemished.
"That should not be possible," said Maxwell. "I remember noting the severity of the cut. There is no way that it could have healed in such a short space of time."
N'yotsu put his hand to his head and rubbed it. "I...do not recall."
"That seems to be a much too convenient answer, sir," I said. "In fact, how come you were completely unscathed by the explosion downstairs, yet you were the closest person to the blast? Exactly what manner of man are you?"
Before he could answer there was a scream from the other side of the room. "It's happening again!" shouted Milly, launching herself at her mother in a whirlwind of arms, legs and teeth.
Mrs Patterson squealed and tried to hold off the attack, aided by Mister Patterson and the butler. However their efforts were to no avail. I rushed over to join in the fight; the girl's determination coupled with our unwillingness to harm her made for a distinctly unfair struggle.
We pulled Milly away and held her against the floor. I pinned her arms and shoulders to the ground while the butler wrestled with her legs. Even incapacitated such as this she still struggled with fierce determination and it took all of my strength to keep her in place.
Having checked on his wife's welfare, Mister Patterson returned to his daughter, pleading with her to calm down and listen to reason. The girl's response was a mixture of incoherent sounds and spittle, with most of the latter landing on my face and arms by nature of where I was positioned.
"Please stop," I said.
Voices sounded from outside the door, the voices of little children taunting me, repeating what I said, over and over. They were joined by the sound of a woman's voice, again from outside the door but this time sounding tearful, the words pleading rather than mocking. "Please stop. Please stop. Please stop." Demonic giggles accompanied this chant as it repeated over and over.
I felt tears prick my eyes; it was as though I were back at school, cowering in the playground once more.
No.
I was no longer that helpless child. I was not someone to be cowed by callous words. Not any more. Red hot rage grew inside of me. Just as I was about to shout a reply the door exploded inwards, throwing us all to the ground.
***If you enjoyed this, please help me turn this from a first draft to a finished product - http://igg.me/at/the-infernal-aether/x/6432405 ***