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CHAPTER FIVE

Creepover

Room 85 was showing off.

When Morrigan had invited her whole unit to the Hotel Deucalion for a Hallowmas sleepover (or ‘creepover’, as Hawthorne insisted on calling it), she’d known her bedroom would do something interesting for the occasion. Nine four-poster beds with ghostly white hangings, perhaps, or nine giant carved pumpkins full of soft blankets, or maybe even nine cosy coffins lined with black velvet, at the bottom of nine freshly dug graves marked with their own individual headstones (she’d really let her imagination go to town on that one).

She had not expected her ceiling to rise sixty feet higher than normal, and a gnarled, twisting tree to grow all the way up to meet it, spreading upwards and outwards to push back the retreating bedroom walls.

She certainly hadn’t expected a staircase to carve itself into the trunk, curving around and around and up and up until it was obscured from view.

She hadn’t dreamed that amid those leafy heights – sprawled across metres of branches growing in every direction – a treehouse would appear, multi-levelled and many-roomed, and cheerfully lit with grinning jack-o’-lanterns and fairy lights strung all around. The dots of light criss-crossed and cross-hatched through the leaves to create the illusion of a wild, starry, spiderweb sky stretching far above them.

Unit 919 met the sight with a collective intake of breath. In response, the tree reached out one long, green-cloaked arm, crooking its twiggy fingers to beckon them closer.

Morrigan could not have been prouder. Aside from Hawthorne and Cadence, who were regular visitors, this was Unit 919’s first time in her home. It was a big moment. These people were her siblings, after all – her schoolmates and friends for life. The Deucalion had evidently decided to give them a suitably momentous welcome.

‘I can’t believe you live here, Morrigan,’ Lam said in a voice full of wonder and, as Her Royal Highness Princess Lamya had lived in an actual palace before coming to Nevermoor, Morrigan considered this high praise indeed. She beamed and took Lam’s overnight bag, hoisting it over her shoulder.

‘Come on, then,’ she said, trying to look as if having a giant treehouse appear in her bedroom was a mundane event. ‘Up we go.’

‘Oh! Morrigan no, you shouldn’t – I’ll carry it!’

‘I’m fine, Lam.’

Morrigan began climbing the stairs two at a time, just to prove she could. She’d already had Jupiter, Conall, Miss Cheery (Unit 919’s conductor) and Nurse Tim from the Wunsoc teaching hospital checking and double-checking and triple-quadruple-quintuple-checking that she was all right after the humiliating incident at the Black Parade. It was bad enough she’d scared off the Unresting, leaving them uncontained and roaming freely for yet another year. The last thing she needed was people fussing over her all night and reminding her of it.

The others began their ascent. Francis had brought more luggage than anyone else. Hawthorne and Thaddea carried the excess all the way up for him, complaining loudly until it was revealed that three out of his four overnight bags contained the makings of a grand midnight feast that he’d spent all week planning.

They soon reached the main platform, a large circular space surrounded by a wooden railing. It led outwards and upwards in nine directions by way of narrow staircases, wonky rope ladders and sloping branches, to nine human-sized nests, each containing a cosy assortment of pillows and blankets, and a tiny golden nightlight. There was no need for any roof other than the gently rustling foliage; Room 85 had provided a perfectly crisp, cool autumn evening, but without the slightest bit of chill or discomfort in the air.

‘I’ll take that one!’ Hawthorne declared when he spotted the highest nest, just as Thaddea pointed at it and shouted, ‘MINE!’

They scowled at each other, ready to fight it out or race to the top, but before a rumble could break out Francis adopted what Morrigan called his ‘head chef voice’ and began barking directions. This confident, bossy version of Francis rarely made an appearance, but whenever he showed up they all snapped to attention.

‘Hawthorne, pour the lime and gingermint punch from the green flask – there are cups in the smaller bag. Yes, Anah, I know you hate ginger – there’s cold spiced honeymilk in the yellow flask. Mahir, pass me that cast iron skillet. No, the big one. Morrigan, I thought you had a fireplace?’

‘Er – well, I did .’ Morrigan looked around the treehouse, wondering what her room had done with the hearth, when flames roared up in response from a large black firepit sunken into the centre of the platform. ‘Will that do?’

Francis gave a surprised nod. ‘Ideal.’

They got to work unpacking paper parcels of bacon chops and beef sausages, clean linen teatowels folded around freshly baked flatbreads, various pickles and chutneys in little jars, and jacket potatoes wrapped in foil. From one case emerged hand-pulled noodles and a flask of steaming savoury broth. From another, tiny speckled quail’s eggs and a bag of foraged mushrooms (Mahir and Morrigan sought double confirmation that they weren’t from the little shop at Eldritch Murdergarden).

Meanwhile, Francis laid out boxes of his best treats, from petite pink fancies (Arch’s favourites), to diamond-shaped pockets of flaky pastry stuffed with soft white cheese, sultanas and almonds, and sprinkled with cinnamon and honey. (‘You made Evening Stars !’ Lam shouted in rhapsodic delight when she spotted them.) Then, finally, the main event—

‘Firecracker-candy rosemary pineapple cake!’ Francis announced proudly, pulling a bright yellow confection from a cardboard baker’s box. The two-tiered cake was covered in little dried pineapple slices that curled artfully upwards to look like sunflowers, with a sprinkle of shimmering black sugar crystals at the centre of each one. Unit 919 burst into applause at the sight of it.

‘Aren’t we a bunch of swells?’ Hawthorne said moments later through a mouthful of loudly popping pineapple cake, beaming around at Unit 919 as they tucked into the phenomenal spread.

Francis was no ordinary chef, of course. His knack was something the Elders called ‘emotive gastronomy’, which meant his food could provoke feelings both subtle and powerful in those who ate it. Morrigan once tried a spiced lamb and apricot pie he offered her and had spent the whole afternoon in a mood Francis described as ‘the mix of glum disappointment and commiserative camaraderie one feels when one’s sports team has suffered a tremendous loss but one is surrounded by equally disappointed fellow supporters of said team’. The pie itself was delicious, however, and the experience certainly hadn’t stopped Morrigan eating pretty much anything Francis offered her. (Mostly it just made her glad she didn’t follow any sports teams.)

Fortunately, Francis had assembled their midnight feast with great care and forethought and the after-effects of his creations seemed to balance each other out, more or less. A formidable flare of temper from the beetroot chutney, for example, was quickly doused by a bite of an Evening Star, which encouraged a spirit of generosity and understanding.

A powerful urge to dance brought on by the noodles was dampened by the broth that accompanied them, which Francis said was meant to ‘evoke the sense that one has forgotten something very important and must sit still and look inwardly to remember what it was’. It made them all gaze into the middle distance for some time – except Hawthorne, whose inner dancer was too powerful for any broth.

‘Oh! Oh no,’ Francis cried at one point, jumping up to examine the jars of chutneys and pickles. He held one up. ‘Did anyone eat this chilli jam?’

Nobody raised their hand, but Cadence froze, holding a piece of bread with cheese and a dollop of the red-flecked jam halfway to her mouth.

‘Why do you— OI!’ she said, as Francis lunged to knock it out of her hand.

‘Sorry,’ he puffed, clutching the jar to his chest. ‘I meant to leave this one at home. It’s supposed to make you feel a little bit brave, but I haven’t quite got the recipe right yet. See?’ He held it out to show them the handwritten label, which read: DANGEROUSLY OVERCONFIDENT FLAVOURS. USE SPARINGLY. ‘Did anyone else—’

He was interrupted by a peal of giggles from above. They looked up to see Anah swinging from branch to branch, her yellow curls loose and wild. Hawthorne and Mahir cheered, and Thaddea was just about crying with laughter.

‘Someone bring her down,’ Lam said in a tight voice. Her eyes were squeezed shut, as if she didn’t want to see whatever she knew was coming. ‘Quickly, please.’

Suddenly Anah’s hand slipped. Unit 919 gave a collective gasp as she free-fell several metres before just barely grasping another branch, whooping with triumph and dangling high in the air.

‘I AM THE EMPRESS OF THE NIGHT!’ she cried elatedly. ‘I AM THE RULER OF THIS TREEHOUSE AND I SHALL HAVE YOUR ALLEGIANCE OR I SHALL TAKE IT BY FORCE!’

‘Come down , Anah!’ Morrigan called up to her.

‘SHAN’T!’

‘Thaddea,’ said Lam urgently, her eyes still closed. ‘Can you please —’

Thaddea had indeed already started to climb the trunk, while Francis rummaged frantically in one of his bags.

‘Here – give her this,’ he called after Thaddea, tossing her a bottle that she caught with ease.

She read aloud from the label, grinning. ‘ Comedown Cordial . That’ll do it.’

Several minutes of coaxing and one large swig of cordial later, Anah sat by the fire wrapped in a blanket, more than a little embarrassed.

‘You have my allegiance, Empress Anah,’ said Arch, smiling as he raised a glass of punch, and the others joined in.

‘Who’s this funny little bunny king?’ Anah deftly changed the subject, reaching to pluck Emmett from his tree-trunk throne, adjusting his tiny golden crown with one finger.

Morrigan’s eyes widened. ‘Please don’t touch him!’

She realised the sharpness of her tone when Anah released Emmett immediately, squeaking, ‘Sorry!’

‘It’s okay,’ said Morrigan, more kindly. She forced a smile. ‘Sorry. He’s just … old, that’s all.’

As if sensing his importance, Morrigan’s bedroom had welcomed her stuffed rabbit, Emmett, by building him a series of increasingly elaborate homes. On various days Morrigan had woken to find him luxuriating in a straw-lined hutch or tucked into his own little bed beside hers. The recent addition of a crown felt appropriately elevating, she thought, for the rabbit she’d had since she was a baby. The rabbit that had belonged to her mother before her, and was imprinted with her mother’s love.

‘Why are we talking about stuffed toys?’ Thaddea grumbled. ‘This is supposed to be a creepover . It’s not very creepy, is it?’

‘Let’s tell ghost stories!’ said Hawthorne. ‘Scariest wins the jar of overconfident chilli jam.’

‘Absolutely not,’ said Francis.

‘Scariest wins the last slice of pineapple cake?’

‘Fine.’

They spent the next half-hour telling the most chilling stories they knew. Thaddea’s tale of ‘Bloody’ Beathan Macleod – the headless Highlander who haunted Glen Aulay, where Clan Macleod had lived for hundreds of years – made Morrigan clutch Emmett closer and Francis whimper with fright.

Anah’s tale started out promisingly, with a bride and groom murdered on their wedding day, but quickly turned into a cosy love story that ended with the ghostly couple living forever in an ivy-covered cottage in the Better Place with their seventeen adopted dogs and a pair of chinchillas called Feather and Fluff.

Lam told a very matter-of-fact story about the ghost of her great-great-grandmother, the Dowager Queen Lawan, who haunted the throne room in the House of the Emerald Mountain – the palace where Lam and her royal siblings had grown up in Far East Sang. Queen Lawan had been poisoned by one of her ladies-in-waiting many Ages earlier, and Lam said she would still sometimes show up on important occasions in the royal court.

‘Only my grandmother, Queen Ama, and I can see Lawan,’ Lam told them, brushing pastry crumbs off her pyjamas. ‘But sometimes other people can hear her. Just the sound of her voice has driven lots of honoured guests away from the palace.’

‘What does she sound like?’ Francis asked in a whisper, pulling his blanket tighter as he watched Lam with wide eyes.

‘Um, sort of like …’ Lam cleared her throat and said in a nasal, rasping voice punctuated with retching noises, ‘Which one of you ugly little ingrates poisoned my tea? Hhuuuurrghhh. Was it you, Biggy Forehead? Or you, Anklechunk? Huuurrrghh. After everything I’ve done for you girls – lifting you from obscurity, making you my ladies, hurrrghh, giving you gowns and jewels and affectionate nicknames – and this is the thanks I get? Hurrrghh. Was it YOU , Whiffypits?’

They all exploded with laughter at this – except Lam herself, who looked nonplussed, and Morrigan, who was watching her thoughtfully.

‘Lam. You can see ghosts?’ she asked, beneath the roaring laughter.

‘Sometimes.’

‘Does that mean … Could you … Tonight, could you see the Unresting?’

‘No. I don’t think they wanted me to.’ Lam reached out to give Morrigan’s hand a brief, knowing squeeze. ‘I’m sorry you had to see them.’

‘You’re next, Morrigan,’ said Mahir.

‘I forfeit my turn,’ she replied, reaching for the spiced honeymilk, which she’d tried for the first time that night and was already developing a taste for. ‘I don’t know any scary stories.’

‘Course you do!’ Hawthorne insisted. ‘You told me that one about the boy in the forest, remember? With the shadow hunters and—’

‘I know what story we all want to hear,’ Thaddea spoke over the top of him. ‘And I think Morrigan knows too.’

‘What do you mean?’ Morrigan’s heart rate quickened. She couldn’t deny she’d seen the Unresting. But did they really want her to describe it? Like it was some silly, spooky story she’d read in a book, and not the most frightening moment of her life?

‘The Hollowpox,’ Thaddea said, as if it was obvious. ‘What happened that night? How’d you destroy the Hollowpox? About time you told us, isn’t it?’

Oh. That.

Morrigan frowned. ‘I have told you.’

‘Not all of it. Whenever it comes up you go all weird and act like you’ve lost your memory or something.’

‘Leave it, Thaddea,’ said Cadence.

‘She doesn’t have to tell us,’ said Arch. ‘You don’t, Morrigan. If it’s hard to talk about, or—’

‘Yes, she does,’ Thaddea snapped at him, then turned back to Morrigan. ‘We’re your unit. We’re supposed to trust each other. How can we trust you if you won’t tell us the truth?’

The truth.

Morrigan looked up into the branches overhead. Was there some truth she hadn’t shared? No. She wasn’t hiding anything from them. If there was a story about that night, she would have told them. She would have—

But there was something, wasn’t there?

A fox skirting the streetlight. A shadow across the moon.

Before she could remember what it was, she heard a faint, faraway knock and a distant voice calling out, ‘Mog? Hello? I don’t want to interrupt the festivities, but I thought you might—’

‘COMING!’ Morrigan jumped up, grateful for an excuse to escape this curiously upsetting conversation.

It took her several minutes to descend the enormous tree-trunk, cross the cool, grassy bedroom floor and open the door to find Jupiter’s nervous face peeking in.

‘ How’s it going? ’ he whispered theatrically. ‘ Everything okay? Everyone having fun? Are you all getting along? Do you need anything? ’

Morrigan squinted into the warmly lit hallway. ‘Why are you talking like that?’

‘ Like what? ’

‘Like the villain in a pantomime,’ she said. He was moving his mouth in a ridiculously exaggerated fashion – as if she wouldn’t possibly understand him unless he OVER-ENUNCIATED – but barely making any noise. ‘Nobody can hear you from down here, they’re all up in the tree.’ She opened the door and waved him in.

‘They’re all up in the wh— OH! Oh my.’

He let out a long, low whistle, peering into the branches. The treehouse seemed even further up than it had before. (Morrigan wondered if that was Room 85’s way of assuring the privacy of their conversation.)

‘Gosh,’ Jupiter continued. ‘The old girl’s really outdone herself this time, hasn’t she?’

They grinned sideways at each other. Morrigan wasn’t convinced anyone but Jupiter truly loved the Deucalion as much as she did.

‘And?’ he asked.

‘And what?’

‘My previous questions remain unanswered: is everything okay? Is everyone having fun and getting along? I also have follow-ups now that I’ve seen the tree. Firstly, how many boxes of marshmallows shall I have sent up, and do you need—’

‘Jupiter, we’re fine, honest.’

‘But it’s your first big sleepover! I want everything to go smoothly.’

Morrigan smiled. ‘You don’t need to worry so much.’

‘I think I’m just a bit nervous,’ Jupiter confessed sheepishly, hunching his shoulders and stifling a tiny giggle. ‘Aren’t you nervous ?’

‘Why would I be nervous? I see these clowns every day.’

As if to illustrate her point, Hawthorne’s voice came booming down from the treehouse.

‘… AND LO, THE GHOST LET OUT A TREMENDOUS AND TERRIFYING SOUND FROM HIS HAUNTED BOTTOM-TRUMPET …’ He took a deep breath and made a long, loud, flatulent noise, and a stream of sugar-fuelled giggles erupted from the others. ‘… AND ALL AROUND HIM DID QUAKE TO SMELL ITS FURY!’

Morrigan clapped a hand over her mouth, trying not to laugh.

‘Yes, but … not like this ,’ Jupiter said in a fretful whisper, ignoring the uncouth interruption. He began to pace restlessly. ‘Mog, they’re in our home! Enjoying our hospitality! Judging us! ’

‘Nobody’s judging us, what are you talking about? Jupiter, really – go to bed. Everything’s fine. I promise.’

I promise. The words made a faint little ping in the back of her mind, like a butter knife tapped on a glass.

He stopped pacing and looked at her then. Really looked at her, in the deliberate way that he sometimes did. In the way that told her he was seeing something important. Something invisible to anyone but a Witness. He looked at her.

And Morrigan looked at him.

And there was a moment, she thought, when each held something in their throat, in their mouth, on the tip of their tongue.

Then the moment was gone. Her mind unravelled itself like a knot, unclenched like a fist. The tension left her, and all she felt was a gentle wash of relief she couldn’t quite trace back to its source.

‘If you’re sure,’ Jupiter said finally.

Morrigan nodded, smiling. ‘I’m sure.’

It was a real smile, free of all doubt. She was sure. What had she been so preoccupied by just now? What was there to worry about? Nothing.

‘Mog … you do know nothing that happened tonight was your fault?’

Her stomach dropped. There it was. Nothing to worry about except the failed Black Parade, and the scattered ghosts, and the hundreds of people who wanted to send her back to the Wintersea Republic.

She grimaced. ‘But the Concerned Citizens—’

‘Are numpties,’ he said, ‘as we’ve previously discussed. Big, embarrassing numpties who need to get a life.’

‘But they were there because—’

‘Because they have too much time on their hands.’

‘I shouldn’t have picked up—’

‘ I shouldn’t have dropped the nightbeacon, but when you picked it up you saved that little girl from a sight that would have frightened her half to death. You did it without thinking, and it was very brave.’

‘But the Unresting!’ she insisted. ‘I looked right at them! It was rule number one and I just—’

‘Reacted instinctively, the same way anyone would have.’

‘But the WHOLE POINT OF THE BLACK PARADE—’

‘Is nothing for you to worry about. The Wundrous Supernatural League will come up with a top-notch Plan B, you’ll see. We’ll help them workshop it in our next C&D gathering. It’s what we’re good at.’ He gave her a reassuring smile. ‘Everything’s going to be fine, Mog. I promise. I just want you to forget all about it, climb back up to that splendid treehouse, and see if Hawthorne will tell his farting ghost story again so I can hear the whole thing from outside in the hallway before I go to bed. Okay?’

‘Okay.’

‘Goodnight then.’

‘Goodnight,’ Morrigan replied as he turned to go, and then – ‘Jupiter, wait.’

He turned back in a flash, closing the few paces between them. ‘Yes? What is it?’

‘I am a bit nervous,’ she admitted, and his eyes softened as he squeezed her shoulder with one hand and gave an enthusiastic thumbs-up with the other.

‘You’ve got this, Mog.’ Pausing in the doorway on his way out, Jupiter glanced up at the tree one last time and shook his head. ‘This old place is awfully fond of you, isn’t it?’

When Morrigan made her way back to the top of the treehouse, the others had already claimed their sleeping spots. Hawthorne was licking a stray bit of pineapple cake from a plastic werewolf talon, and Cadence was carefully wrapping her hair in a silk scarf to sleep in. They waved Morrigan over, having saved her the nest between theirs, and she smiled as she noticed Emmett sitting on her pillow, wondering which one of them had picked him up for her. As they settled in, the treehouse drew its branches closer together so they could whisper silly things in the dark and giggle deliriously.

One by one, the nine scholars fell asleep, cradled in the arms of the most wonderful tree they’d ever seen, while starlight winked improbably through the leaves overhead.

Morrigan woke with a start, heart racing. She peered over the edge of her nest to the main platform below. The firepit had all but died and most of the jack-o’-lanterns had blinked out, but the fairy lights were still aglow. She could hear Hawthorne’s gentle snoring from the branch to her right, and Cadence’s deep breathing on her left. There was no other sound but the whisper of the wind in the tree and her heartbeat in her head.

She felt a familiar uncertainty creep in. That frustrating feeling that there was something she should have done, something she kept forgetting, something important .

Something she had to tell Jupiter? That was it.

She pulled the blankets closer, resolving to seek him out first thing in the morning. Whatever the something was, surely she’d remember it by then.

Why not now ? asked a tiny voice in her head. Why not go see him now? Now’s as good a time as any. Go now.

And before she could talk herself out of it, Morrigan left her warm, cosy nest. She crept down the rope ladder, across the platform, down the spiralling tree-trunk staircase, already beginning to forget why she was out of bed …

TELL HIM, the voice inside her head demanded.

Tell him what ? Morrigan wondered irritably. But she kept moving forward, out of her darkened bedroom and into the soft light of the hall, where she came face to face with—

‘You,’ she whispered, gripping the door handle. ‘What do you want?’

A hunter made of smoke sat astride a horse made of shadow. Red eyes glowing like embers, the hunter extended an open hand in invitation. Morrigan took it without thinking, out of instinct or muscle memory, and—

Oh, she thought, the moment their hands met. At last, the shy little fox inside her head stepped boldly into the glow of the streetlight. Now I remember .

She sighed.

‘I’ll get my coat.’