Judy and the Beast Page 3

  I tiptoed across the front room, heading to the stairs.

  Dad told the truth about the Beast, I thought. That’s why he didn’t want me to come here.

  But why did he bring Ira here every year?

  Moving unsteadily through the darkness, I passed the front entryway. The stairway was ahead in deep shadow.

  I grabbed the banister—then froze.

  I heard more clicks. This time from the front of the mansion. And then the squeak of the front door opening. The door banged softly against the wall.

  I heard a grunt. A low groan. A cough.

  My hand squeezed the banister. I held my breath. Too late to run up the stairs.

  Someone—or something had just entered the house.

  I squinted into the darkness. I could see a figure at the front door. I heard another throaty cough.

  The entryway light flashed on. It was a man, a large man dressed all in black. A black wool ski cap hid his face from me.

  A burst of wind invaded the room. He closed the door behind him.

  I didn’t move. Would he see me?

  He tugged off the cap. Baker. I could see him clearly now. His wiry hair matted to the sides of his face.

  He ran a hand down his beard. Then he stomped mud off his tall boots.

  I suddenly realized I’d been holding my breath. I let it out in a long whoosh.

  He blinked. I could see the surprise on his face as he turned to me. “Judy?” he boomed in his gravelly voice. “What are you doing down here?”

  “I-I-I—” I stammered.

  He narrowed his eyes at me. “Were you spying on me?”

  I gasped. “No. Of course not,” I said. “I heard noises outside and—”

  He bent to pull off one of his boots. “You probably heard me,” he said.

  Huh? Heard you? No. I heard a giant, four-legged beast.

  He tugged off the second boot and stood it up beside the first. “I go out at night,” he said.

  He pulled off his black gloves and tucked them into his coat pockets. Then he took a few steps toward me. “I’m not a good sleeper,” he said. “I get restless at night. I hope I didn’t disturb you.”

  “N-no,” I stammered. “I heard a noise outside my window. I guess it was just you.”

  “I didn’t hear anything else out there,” he said. “Just the wind blowing. It gets very windy up here at the mountaintop.”

  “No. It wasn’t the wind—” I started.

  “Of course, I had my wool hat pulled down over my ears,” he said. “So I couldn’t hear much.” He squinted at me. “Judy, did you see anything?”

  “Uh … no,” I lied.

  I didn’t want to discuss the Beast with him. I needed to talk to Dad about it. Not Baker.

  He took another step closer. “You’d better get used to my late-night habits,” he said softly.

  It didn’t sound like a suggestion. It didn’t sound like a warning. It sounded like a threat.

  I raced up the stairs and stopped in front of Dad’s bedroom door. I raised my fist and knocked hard.

  Silence.

  I raised my fist again to the door, but then lowered it. I knew I couldn’t wake him by knocking. Dad is a very deep sleeper.

  I decided I’d talk to him in the morning.

  In my room, I paced back and forth for a long while, waiting for my heartbeats to slow. Waiting for the chills to stop. Waiting to feel normal again.

  Finally, I climbed into bed and pulled the covers up to my chin. I shut my eyes and tried not to picture that shadowy blur that thundered inches from me, pursuing the poor, doomed rabbit.

  I fell into a restless sleep. I kept waking up, rolling over, forcing myself back to sleep.

  The next morning, I pulled on jeans and a sweatshirt and hurried to Dad’s room. It was empty. He must have gone down to breakfast.

  I headed over to the stairs and nearly bumped into Ira, just leaving his room.

  “Hey,” I said, “stop.” I grabbed his arms and pushed him against the wall.

  “What’s your problem?” he snapped.

  “Listen to me,” I said, keeping my voice just above a whisper. “I have to tell you what I saw last night. An enormous creature—it ran right past me. It killed a rabbit, Ira. The Beast. It was the Beast that Dad—”

  I stopped talking when I saw that he was laughing. “Wh-what’s so funny?” I stammered.

  He shook his head. “I’ll tell you what’s so funny,” he said. “You believed Dad.”

  “I … what?”

  “You believed Dad, Judy. He made that up about a beast running loose up here. I don’t know what made him think of it. But it isn’t true. He—”

  “But I saw it!” I cried. I wanted to wipe the grin off Ira’s face.

  “Dad knows this is a special time for me when I get to be with him up here,” Ira said. “He didn’t want you to come and spoil it for me. So he made up a crazy story about a beast.”

  “But, Ira, listen to me—”

  “I don’t think he ever expected you to believe him,” Ira said, and laughed again. “Who would believe a dumb thing like that?”

  I took a deep breath. “Ira, I was outside last night. I saw—”

  He pressed his hand over my mouth. “I’m serious,” he said. “Stop. Don’t talk about it.”

  “Don’t talk about what?” a voice called.

  I turned to see Hilda behind me.

  “Uh … Don’t talk about all the work Dad has to do here this year,” Ira said, thinking quickly.

  She chuckled. “Yes. Don’t worry about him. Your dad enjoys his work.”

  We followed Hilda down to the kitchen for breakfast. Dad was already seated at the table. He greeted us with a smile. “Hope you two have an appetite. Harvard has made us a feast for breakfast,” he said, pointing to the platter in the middle of the table. “Blueberry pancakes with eggs and sausages.”

  I gripped my stomach. I still felt tense from last night.

  I was desperate to talk to Dad. But I guessed it would have to wait until after breakfast.

  Dad started in on a tall stack of pancakes drenched in syrup on his plate. When he looked up at me, he had syrup dripping down his walrus mustache. “Judy, you look tired. Did you sleep?”

  “Not really,” I answered. I saw Hilda watching me from the end of the breakfast table. I didn’t say any more.

  “This breakfast is awesome!” Ira said. “At home, we don’t even have eggs.”

  Dad swallowed a mouthful of pancakes. “You told me you like cereal for breakfast,” he said.

  Ira frowned. “Every morning?”

  “We don’t have breakfast like this every morning,” Hilda said. “This is a special welcome breakfast.”

  I heard noises in the hall. And then Baker’s cheery shout: “Good morning, everyone.”

  Baker strode into the room wearing a maroon sweatsuit. His hair shot out in all directions. Grinning, he gave us a big wave.

  And then I cried out in alarm. And gaped at the enormous black creature that came bursting into the kitchen from behind him. Its paws thundering over the floor, it came charging at us, head lowered to attack.

  The Beast! The Beast—in the house!

  Baker let out a booming laugh. “Judy, that’s quite a scream. You haven’t met Aurora yet, have you!”

  The big beast ran over to Hilda, and she reached out a hand to pet his gigantic head.

  “Aurora, say hi to Judy,” Baker said. “She’s our new guest.”

  The creature didn’t obey. Instead, he raised his head and loudly sniffed the food on the table.

  My head was spinning. “It … it’s a dog?” I managed to choke out.

  Ira laughed. “Did you think Aurora was a horse? Of course he’s a dog.”

  I could feel my face go hot, and I knew I was blushing. “I-I—”

  “Aurora is a Neapolitan mastiff,” Baker said. “Maybe the biggest breed of dog on earth.” He walked over to the dog and smoothed both hands ba
ck over its big face. “I like a big dog.”

  Aurora walked up to my chair. He raised his head to sniff me. Then he licked the back of my hand with a wide pink tongue.

  “He can be very gentle when he wants to be,” Baker said. “But be careful, Judy. The dog weighs one hundred fifty pounds! And if he decides he doesn’t like you …”

  Baker grabbed a pancake off the table and shoved it into the big dog’s mouth. Aurora gobbled it down, chewing noisily.

  I saw Ira grinning at me across the table. Okay. Okay. So he was right. I didn’t see a beast last night. I saw Aurora.

  I felt like a total idiot.

  “Aurora and I go for late-night walks all the time,” Baker said. “Didn’t you see him with me last night, Judy?”

  “No,” I said. “I didn’t know—”

  Dad squinted at me. “You were out last night?” he asked.

  I nodded. “I couldn’t sleep.”

  “I thought you saw Aurora when you came to my dining room last night,” Baker said. “He and I share every meal.”

  Now I felt like an even bigger jerk.

  It wasn’t Baker making those disgusting eating noises I had heard through the dining room door. It was Aurora.

  So there was no beast. Dad told me about the Beast to frighten me.

  But that was so unlike him. With his cheeks always turning pink, Dad is such a bad liar. He never ever makes up stories.

  Why did he make up the one about a beast?

  Judy has a wild imagination.

  How could she mistake Aurora for a beast?

  After all, Aurora is big and furry and heavy and hard-breathing. And a beast, on the other hand, is big and furry and heavy and hard-breathing! Haha.

  Sure, Aurora ate that rabbit. But I think Judy should apologize to the dog.

  Aurora is entitled to a midnight snack, isn’t he? And just because he likes his meat rare doesn’t make him a beast.

  Is there really a beast at the Grendels’ house?

  Let me give you a hint. This is a horror story—isn’t it?

  Hahaha!

  After breakfast it seemed everyone had somewhere to go but me.

  Dad decided to start the shingle work on the roof and asked Ira to come help him. Baker said he would be working in his office. Hilda said she worked there, too, as his secretary.

  I was still at the table when Harvard began to clear the dishes. He wore a crisp white apron over his black suit. His expression was as sad as ever, like a sorrowful hound dog. And the dark circles around his eyes seemed even darker.

  “The pancakes were awesome, Harvard,” I said.

  He nodded. A tight smile crossed his face for just a second. “Would you like a cooking lesson this morning, Miss Judy?” he asked.

  I blinked. Did he know that I had nothing planned for the day?

  “Well … sure,” I said finally.

  “I’m making a Niçoise salad and a mushroom tart for lunch, and you can help me.”

  “Sounds like fun,” I said.

  I’m not exactly handy in the kitchen. Actually, I’ve never tried to cook anything. Mrs. Hardwell prepares all our meals.

  After the dishes were put away, Harvard began pulling ingredients from the kitchen pantry. The tall pantry shelves reached to the ceiling. The pantry was bigger than my room back home.

  “We need to bring in a good supply of food,” Harvard explained. “Because of the snow in the winter, we can’t go down to shop for months at a time.”

  He gave me a large knife and set me up with romaine lettuce. “Shred it for the salad,” he said. “I’m going to work on the dough for the tart.”

  We worked in silence for a while. The knife was very sharp, and I worked carefully.

  After several minutes, the silence grew awkward. “How long have you worked here?” I asked him.

  He uttered a sigh. “Longer than you can imagine,” he said. “I came with the house.”

  I stopped chopping. “What do you mean?”

  “I worked for Baker’s father. When he died, I stayed on with Baker.”

  I studied him. “So I guess you like the job?”

  He started to grate a block of cheese. “I don’t know any other,” he said softly.

  “Don’t you get lonely up here?” I asked. I immediately regretted the question. Was I being too nosey?

  He didn’t answer. He kept his eyes on the cheese grater as it scraped the wedge of cheese.

  “What does Baker do?” I asked.

  Okay. So I’m nosey. So sue me.

  “Hard to say,” Harvard answered, still avoiding my eyes.

  “No. Really,” I insisted. “What is his job? What does he do?”

  Harvard picked up a long-bladed knife and held it over the cheese wedge. “Better not to ask questions, Miss Judy,” he said, lowering his voice to a whisper.

  “What did you say?” I wasn’t sure I had heard him correctly.

  “It’s risky,” he said. “Questions can be risky.”

  Risky?

  He lowered the knife to the cheese—and I saw it slip.

  The blade cut deep into the back of Harvard’s hand.

  He didn’t scream or cry out at all. He just blinked a few times and murmured, “Oh.”

  I stared at the cut, a straight line sliced deep in the skin.

  I stared and felt a wave of shock roll down my body. My mouth dropped open as I studied the back of his hand.

  He didn’t bleed.

  The cut didn’t bleed at all.

  Dad and Ira came in for lunch. I tried to tell them about Harvard and the cut on his hand that didn’t bleed. But the two of them were talking a mile a minute about the work on the roof. I couldn’t get a word in.

  When we started to eat the salad, they complimented me on the good job I had done shredding the lettuce.

  I knew they were kind of making fun of me. But I didn’t want to turn it into an argument. I wanted Ira to come for a walk with me in the forest.

  He glanced across the table at Dad. “I can’t,” Ira said. “I have to help on the roof.”

  “Where are Hilda and Baker?” I asked.

  “They usually eat lunch in their private dining room,” Dad said. “That way, they can get back to work quickly.”

  “What does Baker do?” I asked. “Harvard wouldn’t tell me.”

  “It’s complicated,” he said.

  I squinted at him. “Complicated?”

  “Kind of,” Dad said. “It’s hard to say what he does exactly. He is very mysterious.”

  “Everyone around here is mysterious,” I said. “I can’t get a straight answer to any question.”

  “Maybe you ask too many questions,” Ira said. Then he laughed.

  Was that supposed to be a joke?

  The narrow dirt trail led in a straight line from the tall grass at the back of the house into the tangled trees of the forest. The ground was frozen from the cold. My boots cracked over patches of thin ice.

  My breath steamed in front of me as I walked. I zipped my parka up to the fur collar. Above me, the sky was gray. Low clouds formed a dark blanket over the sun.

  It had snowed a little in the morning. The air still felt heavy and wet, and I thought it might start snowing again.

  I stopped at the edge of the trees and watched a large red falcon swoop down over the tall grass. The bird had its eye on something in the grass. It swooped low, picked up a small animal, raised its broad wings, and sailed off with it.

  I tightened my hood around my face and followed the path into the trees. The air grew cooler as soon as I stepped into the forest. Gray light washed down through the treetops, dark as evening.

  I shivered. It was colder than I’d imagined. I wished Ira had come along.

  I thought about turning around and going back to the house. But I really wanted to explore. Maybe I could find something awesome to paint.

  A cluster of red and purple wildflowers caught my eye. They swayed from one side to the other, as if danci
ng to a silent melody.

  I reached into my pocket for my phone. I wanted to photograph them. Maybe I could paint them later. I sighed when I realized I’d left my phone in my room.

  I studied them for a while. I wanted to remember how the blossom colors blended from red to purple. I felt a deep chill as the wind picked up. A signal to keep moving.

  Baker had warned to stay on the dirt path and not wander off into the trees. I guess he was worried about me getting turned around and lost.

  I have a very good sense of direction. But I decided to follow his instructions, and I stayed on the narrow path as it zigged and zagged between the tall trees.

  I stayed on the path until I saw the cabin.

  It stood in a small clearing between two enormous trees. A square cabin. It looked like a brown box with a flat roof. I saw a narrow wooden door in the front and a small window beside it.

  Dead brown leaves piled up at one side of the cabin. A garden rake tilted against the other side.

  Was someone in there?

  Why would someone build a cabin in the middle of a forest so far away from everything?

  My head swam with questions as I took a few steps toward it.

  The window was nearly solid black, caked with dirt. But as I came closer, I saw footprints in the snow leading to the cabin door.

  I stopped a few feet away and cupped my hand around my mouth. “Hello? Anyone in there?” I shouted.

  I thought I heard something move inside the cabin. But no one appeared in the window. No one came to the door.

  I shouted again. “Anyone in there? Hello!”

  Silence now. A strong burst of wind sent the rake toppling to the ground.

  I stepped up to the wooden door. The wood slats were rough and unpainted. I raised a fist and knocked three times. “Hello?”

  I thought I heard the floor creak inside the cabin. I had a strong hunch someone was in there.

  “Hello? Anyone in there?”

  I moved to the window and tried to peer inside. I couldn’t see anything. Too dark in there, and the glass was smeared with mud.

  With a sigh, I started to back away. But then I stopped. And stared hard at the footprints leading up to the cabin door.