The Thing

PART FIVE

“Is this your house?” said Anise, 
“Yes, some of it.” in front of them was a mass of tree roots with a door and a few windows in it. 

Anise was not impressed. Patrick opened the door and they went in. Inside was a straight, door-lined hallway which they walked down into a large room with comfortable seats along the walls. In one corner were three small girls playing quietly with dolls and on one of the seats was a girl who looked about fifteen, sitting rocking a small baby. She looked up as they entered, 
“You're late again, Patrick.” she said, 
“I know, Lily.” 
“Your lunch is in the kitchen if you want it. Who's this?” she said, turning to Anise, 
“This is Anise. Anise, this is my sister.” Lily stood up and put the baby in a basket. 
“Are you hungry, Anise?” 
“Yes, thank you.” 
“This way then.” they walked to a room which was very obviously a kitchen, at one end was a large fire with two or three ovens above it, the walls were lined with cupboards and draws and utensils of all kinds were hung on hooks. In the middle of the room was a long table at which was a lady rolling out bread. 
“Mother, Patrick's home.” said Lily. 
The lady, who didn't look old enough to be anyone's mother, looked up at Patrick reproachfully, “You're late again. Your lunch is over here. Who's this?” she looked at Anise, 
“This is Anise, I found her in the forest.” Patrick's mother seemed quite pleased to see Anise and offered her something to eat. While Anise was eating it Patrick's mother, who told Anise to call her Mrs Macandrew, and Lily asked her how old she was and where she was from and who her relatives were and things like that.
"Where did you come from before you went to the maid school?" Mrs Macandrew asked at one point in the conversation.
"I don't know. the only thing I remember before I went there is that I was in a plane crash." Anise replied.
"And that was when you were three?" asked Lily.
"Yes."
"And you're fourteen now?"
"Yes."
"Wasn't there a plane crash in those mountains about that time which everyone where I came from made the most enormous fuss about?" Said Mrs Macandrew, looking at her daughter. "They said it must have been shot down by the Immortals or something and then they couldn't find it."
"I don't know, Mother"
"Well. maybe it was a different one. I don't know."
"What's a plane crash Anise?" Asked Lily.
After that was finished Anise was shown around the house and garden and found that the house was enormous and Patrick had a very large family who mostly didn't actually live in that house and also about the town which wasn't that far away. As Anise didn't really want to go back to the school in the mountains and as the place in which she found herself was a very nice place she was in no hurry to leave, in fact she stayed a week. One day she was in the attic with Patrick looking at old books when there was a loud roaring noise outside. They ran downstairs to investigate and found Mrs Macandrew in the hall with baby Andrew in her arms. She was looking very agitated. “What is it?” asked Patrick, 
“I don't know.” 
“Mother!” called one of the girls from the living room, “there's a great big thing out there!” 
“I'm just coming!”

 Mrs Macandrew called back. She hurried to the door with Anise behind her. When she looked out of the living room window she gasped in terror, outside was an enormous shape in the air moving slowly toward the ground.

 “Lily,” said Mrs Macandrew, “tell everyone to get inside and go to the cellar tunnel as quickly as possible.” 
“Yes Mother.” said Lily. 
 Mrs Macandrew turned to Anise, “Where's Patrick?” 
“I don't know, I'm sure he was here a minute ago.” 
“Mother look!” said Renata, pointing out the window at the thing which had landed half on the vegetable garden and half on one of the paddocks in front of the house, almost covered in a cloud of its own smoke. 
“Come on, we need to go.” said Mrs Macandrew, turning to the door, 
“Patrick!” screamed Renata, for as the smoke cleared a little, they could see two people dragging Patrick toward the thing.  
“Oh no.” whispered Mrs Macandrew. A swirl of smoke obscured the window for a moment. When it had cleared away Patrick was gone but there were several strange men coming toward the house. “Now we really must go.” said Mrs Macandrew, “Follow me, quickly.” they hurried down the passage, collecting Macandrews on the way, down the stairs and into the cellar. Once there a trap door was revealed and everyone went down the ladder underneath it. There was a quick head count and it was found that Ruth, who was as old as Anise and had brown skin, was missing. 
“I'll go and find her.” said Anise.
“If she's at the other end of the house there's another trap door in the guest room.” said Mr Macandrew, before she left. The house was completely silent as Anise searched through the rooms, she found Ruth in the library reading a book.

 She looked up as Anise came in. “What is it?” she asked.
“We need to get to the cellar tunnel now.” said Anise. 
“Why?” 
“There's a great big... thing outside.” 
“oh.” they walked quickly to the guest room and found the trap door under the built-in and curtained bed but before they could get in they heard steps in the hallway. Ruth dropped the trap door and it clicked shut. 
“I think I heard something down this way.” said a strange voice. The steps drew nearer. 
Ruth yanked at the trap door, “It won't open, it's jammed!”

 she whispered, 
“You shouldn't have shut it!” Anise hissed back.
“There are people in this room, look, my scanner's flashing.” came the strange voice again. Ruth finally got the trap door un-jammed but just as she was lifting it the door of the room opened and three men and one woman were in the room 

END OF PART FIVE