The Quiet House

Part One. The Slowest Door in the World

Last time, Willow knocked on a door at the bottom of a hill, and somebody inside said "At last."

That was on Tuesday night, in the gods' world. We were fast asleep in our beds at the time, and so we have this part from Alex and Felix, and from Maya's notebook, and from Ollie, who asked what the porridge was like. (There was porridge. We will get to it.)

They stood on the step for a long time.

Nothing happened. The door was open, but there was nobody in it. A candle flickered somewhere in the dark. Tyr stood behind them with his hands folded, as if this was perfectly normal. Willow sat on the mat and licked her paw.

"Is anyone in?" said Alex.

"Yes," said a voice, from a long way inside.

They waited.

"Is she coming?" whispered Felix.

"She's coming," said Tyr. "She is always coming."

At the far end of the hall, faintly, there was the sound of a slipper, going shuff. Then, a very long time after, another one. Shuff.

"She is called Ganglöt," whispered Tyr. "It means Slow Walker. Hel gave her the name, and she has never been able to argue with it."

Part Two. At Last

It took her eleven minutes.

Alex counted. When she arrived at the door, he had got to six hundred and sixty, and had started again from the beginning, because he had been making mistakes. Felix had made a small pile of stones on the step. Willow had washed all four paws and was working on her ear.

Ganglöt was the oldest person they had ever seen. She was small, and bent, in a grey shawl, with a lot of lines on her face, and a pair of round glasses on a string. She had a long iron key in one hand, and a candle in the other, and a look on her face of such enormous happiness that Alex felt a bit shy.

"Visitors," she said.

It was the voice from before. It was so soft and dry that it sounded like paper.

"Visitors," she said again. "At last."

That's when Alex noticed that her slippers were two different colours, one red and one blue. He decided not to mention it. Felix noticed too. They each went very slightly pink, from trying not to laugh, and stared hard at the ceiling.

She looked at Alex and Felix. She looked at Willow, who gave her a long, slow blink. Then she began, gently, to cry.

"Oh," said Felix. "Oh, no, we didn't mean to..."

"It's the happy kind," said Ganglöt, wiping her nose on her shawl. "Come in, come in. Mind the step. Wipe your feet. Oh, how long. How long. Nobody has ever come to see us. And now there are two, and a cat."

"Why doesn't anybody visit?" said Alex.

"It is a quiet house," said Ganglöt, as if that was the answer. "Quiet houses are lonely. People think they will be in the way."

Part Three. A Quiet House

It was quiet.

You could tell as soon as you stepped inside. It was the kind of quiet that you can almost hear, like the hum in a library after the bell. Even the floor was quiet: the stones were laid so smoothly that their shoes made no sound. Even Willow's paws made no sound, which for Willow is a very impressive thing.

The hall was long and low, and lit with candles in grey glass jars. There were shelves down both walls, from floor to ceiling, and on the shelves there were a great many small things. A teacup. A spinning top. A single glove. A tiny boat in a bottle. A little drum.

"What are they all?" whispered Alex.

"They belong to people who have finished," said Ganglöt. "They leave a small thing behind, and we keep it for them. So they will not feel forgotten."

At the end of the hall, a stream of clear water ran along a stone channel in the middle of the floor, and disappeared under the far wall, with a small trickle. Willow's ears went straight up.

"Don't," said Alex. But she had already gone.

She marched down the hall with her tail like a flagpole, stopped at the edge of the stream, and began to drink. She drank for a long time. Then she looked up with water dripping from her whiskers, and gave the loudest, longest, most satisfied meow that anyone had ever heard in that house.

"Where does it go?" said Felix, who was watching the water slide away under the wall. It ran in a long, smooth, silvery curve, and out of sight.

"To the Edge," said Ganglöt. "It's where the house stops. Everything runs out there in the end. Water, and weather. And cats, now and then. It is only a cat's width, that gap." She looked at Willow, thoughtfully, over the top of her glasses. "They like it. It's the only place in the nine worlds where you can't tell which side you are on."

"That's Willow's favourite sort of place," said Alex.

It echoed. A little bit of dust fell off a shelf. Alex put both hands over his mouth.

"Oh!" said Ganglöt, delighted. "Oh, we haven't had a noise for ages."

On the wall by the stream, there was a sign, written in small, neat letters, with a border of silver leaves. It said:

THE RULES OF THE QUIET HOUSE 1. No shouting. 2. No slamming. 3. No running. 4. Tea at five, and it is not optional.

"Those are quite good rules," said Felix.

"They're Hel's rules," said Ganglöt. "She wrote them when she was very small. She thought that, if she wrote enough rules, somebody would have to come and see if they were being kept."

Alex tried to whisper the sign out loud. He did it so quietly that it came out as a squeak. Felix tried to help, and sneezed, which is the loudest thing a person can do in a quiet house. Every single candle leaned over, and straightened up again, and the humming man in the next room said, "Bless you," without missing a note.

"Sorry," whispered Felix.

"Don't be," said Ganglöt, who was almost dancing. "It's lovely. Oh, do it again."

Part Four. The Ones Who Were Resting

There were people in the next room.

They were sitting in big chairs round a low fire, with blankets over their knees. There were a lot of them, young and old, and they did not look sad. They looked like people who had come in from a long walk and were not going to get up for a while. Somebody was knitting. Somebody was reading. An old man was humming a tune, very quietly, and tapping his foot.

None of them looked up. But the humming man smiled at Willow as she went past.

"Are they asleep?" whispered Felix.

"No," whispered Tyr. "Resting. They have finished."

"Finished what?" said Alex.

Tyr did not seem to know how to answer. He looked at Ganglöt.

"Finished being busy," said Ganglöt, gently. "It is a long job, being busy. When it's over, they come here, and sit down, and they don't have to do anything. It is my job to see that nobody is cold, and nobody is lonely, and everybody has a blanket."

"Like Gary," said Alex, slowly.

"Who is Gary?" said Ganglöt.

"He was our goldfish," said Alex. "At school. He's under the oak tree now. We said some words."

Ganglöt put her hand on his head. It was light and dry, like a leaf. "Then it's a bit like that," she said. "Only here, they get a blanket. And the cat can come in."

"I like it," said Felix, after a minute. "It's quiet. But it isn't sad."

"No," said Ganglöt, with a small shy smile. "Quiet is not the same thing as sad. People do muddle them up."

Part Five. The Old Man's Tune

The humming man looked round.

He was very old, with a white beard and a thick knitted jumper, and hands as brown and knobbly as roots. He had been tapping his foot for so long that there was a worn patch in the rug. He looked at Alex, and then at Felix, and then he looked at the tune he was humming, as if he had only just noticed what it was.

"It's a good one," he said, in a dry, cheerful voice. "Do you know it?"

"No," said Alex.

"It's from when I was small," said the old man. "By the water, in the north. We had a game. Lots of us, in a line, and one at the front with his back turned." He hummed it again, and this time he said the words, in a funny old-fashioned way. "Wolf, wolf, what's the hour? Wolf, wolf, what's the hour? And the wolf would say a number, and we would creep. And when he said supper-time..."

"He turned round," said Felix.

"And chased you," said Alex.

"Aye." The old man's face lit up like a lantern. "Fast as a gull. Oh, I was quick. I once got all the way to the wolf without his hearing me, and nobody could ever beat that. I've not played it for... oh. A great many years."

The twins stared at each other.

"It's the same game," whispered Alex.

"It's the same," whispered Felix. "It's got a different name. But it's the same."

"Every child in every place knows that one," said the old man. "It has a hundred names. In the south they call it something else, and further off again, something else. But it's always creeping, and the number, and the turn. It goes everywhere." He sighed. "I don't know why they ever stop playing it."

"Do you want to play it again?" said Felix.

"Oh," said the old man. "I am much too tired. I've finished." He smiled at them, and settled back. "But I should like to see it. Tell me, if there is a game."

He began to hum again, softer, and tapped his foot.

"He's Old Ulf," said Ganglöt, from the doorway. "He has been here since before the house was painted. And every night, Hel puts a blanket on his knees. Nobody asked her to. She just does. She doesn't think anybody sees."

Felix turned round, and in the firelight, he saw that the old man's blanket was grey and neat, and tucked in at the edges, exactly like the one on Hel's bed. The corners were folded by someone who had folded a great many.

"Somebody sees," he said.

Part Six. A Room with Nobody In It

"This," said Tyr, "is Hel's room."

It was the last door on the left. It was plain. It had a narrow bed, with a grey blanket, and a single window with a wooden shutter. There was a small table with a candle. There was a bookshelf with exactly four books on it, in a row, with the spines straight.

It was the tidiest room that either of them had ever seen. It was so tidy that it did not look lived in. It looked as if somebody had put it away.

"She hasn't got any toys," said Felix.

"She has one," said Ganglöt.

On the shelf, at the end, there was a small wooden wolf. It was no longer than a thumb, and it had been held so many times that its edges were smooth and shiny. Beside it was a piece of paper, folded in half, and gone soft.

Alex unfolded it, carefully.

It was a drawing. It had been done in black crayon, by somebody who had pressed very hard. It showed three people. There was a girl in a long dress, and a large puppy, and a tall man with a beard and a square hand on one side, and a round one on the other. Over the top, in wobbly capitals, it said: MY FAMILY.

Nobody said anything. Tyr stood still in the doorway, with his head down.

"She did that for you," said Felix, very quietly.

"She did it a long time ago," said Tyr. "I... I was only minding."

"I don't think she thinks it's only," said Alex.

"She's a serious girl," said Ganglöt, from the doorway, with the candle held up so that her glasses shone. "People say she's cold, because her face is half pale and half warm and she doesn't smile much. But she is only careful. She listens to everybody who comes to this house. It's her job. She listens to all of them, so carefully, that there is no room left to be listened to herself."

Felix thought about that. He thought it might be the saddest thing he had ever heard, and also quite a good thing to know about somebody.

"Does anyone listen to her?" he said.

"The wolf does," said Ganglöt. "He follows her everywhere. He thinks she hung the moon." She smiled. "She didn't, of course. But she has never told him so."

Part Seven. The Chair for Visitors

In the corner of the room, there was a chair.

It was a small, upright chair with a straight back, and a cushion on it, embroidered with tiny silver stars. Nobody had ever sat on it. Alex could tell. The cushion was perfect, and there was dust on the seat.

"What's that one for?" he said.

"That is for a guest," said Ganglöt. "Hel put it there, a long time ago. She said, in case. She has been saying that for years. In case somebody comes."

Alex looked at the chair for a long time. Then, carefully, he blew the dust off it, and sat down.

It was a bit small. His knees stuck up. But it was a very good chair, upright, and kind, and not at all dusty once you were sitting in it. He tucked his hands under his legs and swung his feet.

"There," said Felix. "She'll like that."

"Will she know?" said Alex.

"I think we should tell her," said Felix.

Willow jumped up onto Hel's narrow bed, turned round twice, and lay down on the grey blanket, in the exact middle. She gave a long, tired sigh. She looked like someone who had been polite all evening and was going to stop now.

"Oh," said Ganglöt, with great satisfaction. "She's taking the bed. Good. It has been waiting for a friend for a hundred years."

Willow did not stay there for long. Ten minutes later, she was gone again, and nobody had seen her go.

She came back with a present.

It was a mouse. She carried it carefully in her mouth, down the whole of the long, quiet hall, past the shelves and the stream, and into the room with the fire. Everyone was still sitting there. She stopped in front of Ganglöt, and put it down on the toe of her red slipper, and sat back with her tail round her feet, looking terribly pleased.

"Oh, my goodness," said Ganglöt.

"She's brought you a mouse," said Alex, who has seen it many times. "It's a nice one."

"It's dead," said Felix, who has also seen it many times.

"It's a gift," said Ganglöt, with her hand on her heart. "She has paid her rent!"

Then Willow, in front of everyone, in the firelight, picked up the mouse again, and began to eat it.

There was a very long, quiet pause. Somebody coughed. Somebody put down their knitting.

"Oh," said Old Ulf, who had looked up. "Good shot."

Willow looked at him, with a small bit of tail sticking out of her mouth, and gave the most dignified blink of her whole life.

"We're so sorry," whispered Felix.

"Don't be," said Ganglöt. "It is the best thing that has happened in this house for a hundred years. You should see Hel's face when she hears."

Part Eight. Porridge

Just before midnight, Ganglöt brought them porridge.

It took her some time. She went off to the kitchen at ten past eleven, and the twins sat on the bed and played I Spy for a while, and then a long game of Rock, Paper, Scissors that Felix won, and then a short one that Alex won, and then they had a nap. When they woke up, they could hear the shuff of a slipper coming down the hall, and it was still not here yet. It was nearly a quarter to twelve before she came through the door.

"She does take her time," whispered Alex.

"It's what she's for," whispered Felix.

It had been simmering for hours, and it was the best thing either of them had ever tasted: thick and warm and sweet, with a little pool of honey in the middle, and a silver spoon each. It was in a bowl that had been Hel's. Ganglöt said she hoped she would not mind.

They ate sitting on the end of the bed, in their coats, with Willow stretched out behind them like a hot-water bottle that had given up the argument. The candle burned very low. Outside, through the shutters, the two moons were shining.

"Tyr," said Felix, with his mouth full. "Can I ask you something?"

"You may ask," said Tyr. He was sitting on the floor, with his back against the wall. He looked tired in a way that had very little to do with the hour.

"How do we get back?"

Tyr did not answer at once. Then he took a breath.

"There is an old rule," he said. "I know it because words are the thing that I keep. A promise, to be a promise, must be said with the right words, at the right moment, in the right breath. If it is not, it isn't kept. It isn't anything."

"Like the game," said Alex.

"Exactly like the game," said Tyr. "To swap two people, the worlds had to match: the same game, the same words, the same moment. It's why you did not swap with a pair of shoes. But once you are swapped, the old rule is: it stays. It stays, until the same moment comes round again."

"The same moment," said Felix.

"The same words," said Tyr. "The same breath. Both sides at once."

Part Nine. The Hard Part

"That's easy!" said Alex. "We just play it again!"

"We can't," said Felix, slowly. "Not just us. It's got to be both sides."

"What does that mean?"

"Hel and Fenris have to play it too," said Felix. "At the same time. At the school."

They both went quiet.

It was late. Willow's tail twitched. The candle gave a small, thin sputter. In the next room, the old man had stopped humming, and somebody was turning the pages of a book, slowly.

"They don't know the rule," said Alex.

"Nobody's told them," said Felix.

"And we can't tell them. Odin's ravens can't fly out. We haven't got a phone. We haven't got a puddle."

"And Madam Simurgh's feather is at school," said Alex, "and it only finds people who are lost from each other. We're together."

"We haven't got Willow," said Felix. "Not that she'd go."

Willow opened one golden eye, and shut it again.

"Friday," said Tyr, quietly, as if he were speaking to himself. "The moon is full on Friday. I know that is the end of it. I had hoped... but I do not know how to help you."

He did not look at them when he said it.

"It's not your fault," said Alex.

"It is a little bit," said Tyr. "I was meant to be minding them."

Part Ten. What Felix Asked

Felix put down his spoon.

He had been thinking about it since the first moment on the hill, and about the man with the ribbon, and the drawing, and the way that Tyr said minding as if it was a very heavy word. He was the one who always asked, in the end, and he did it now.

"Tyr," he said. "What's the ribbon for?"

It went quiet in the room. Even the candle seemed to listen.

Tyr's hand went to his pocket, where the silver thing lay folded. He took it out. It lay across his palm, long and pale and soft, as light as a wisp of smoke.

"It is for something I do not want to do," he said.

"What?" said Alex.

"It is a long story," said Tyr, "and I am too tired to tell it."

"We've got till Friday," said Felix.

Tyr almost laughed. It was a small, very sad sound. "That is exactly the trouble," he said. "I do have until Friday. And then, I think, I shall have to do it."

He did not say any more. He put the ribbon away. He put his hand on Felix's head, gently, with his good one. And then he got up, and went to the door, and stood looking out into the dark.

"Sleep," he said. "In the morning, I will tell you."

Part Eleven. The Line of Silver

Alex did not sleep.

He lay on the narrow bed beside Felix, with Willow on his feet and the blanket up to his chin, and looked at the ceiling. It was quiet. The kind of quiet that you can hear. It did not make him afraid, but it made him think, and thinking is harder than being afraid.

He thought about Gary, under the oak tree. He thought about the girl with the drawing. He thought about Dot, who was probably holding her hand.

He put his hand in his pocket, and found the golden key. It was warm, and heavier than usual. He took it out, under the blanket, and held it up in the dark. It had a small glow in the teeth, like a firefly in a jar.

He turned it, very slowly, towards the door. The glow got brighter. He turned it towards the window, and it faded. He turned it back.

"Huh," whispered Alex. "It likes the door."

It was an odd thing to know about a key. But it was an odd night, and he was only just beginning to get used to it.

That's when he saw the line.

It was at the bottom of the door. A thin, very bright line, like the light from a landing when you've been told to be in bed. It was silver. It was only a hair wide.

It was moving.

It crept slowly along the floor, in a long straight line, to the edge of the stream where it ran under the wall. It stopped there, and shone, and was still. Beside it, Willow had woken up. She was sitting bolt upright on the end of the bed, with her ears pointing forward, looking at it.

"Felix," whispered Alex.

"What?" said Felix, from deep in the blanket.

"The edge," said Alex. "Memory said cats go through the edges."

Felix sat up.

Willow got down from the bed, silently, in the dark, and walked to the line of silver, and sat down in front of it, as if somebody had asked her to wait there.

Neither of them said anything. Felix took Alex's hand under the blanket, and Alex took Felix's. Then they said it, quietly, at exactly the same time, so that nobody should hear. "Monday."

The End.