House of Many Ways Read Free

asleep.
    “Er…haven’t you forgotten his suitcase?” she said, as they carried him away toward the door.
    “No need for it,” one of the elves said, holding the door open for the others to ease Great-Uncle William out through it.
    After that, they were all going away down the garden path. Charmain dashed to the open front door and called after them, “How long is he going to be away?” It suddenly seemed urgent to knowhow long she was going to be left in charge here.
    “As long as it takes,” another of the elves replied.
    Then they were all gone before they reached the garden gate.

Chapter Two
I N WHICH C HARMAIN EXPLORES THE HOUSE
    Charmain stared at the empty path for a while and then shut the front door with a bang. “ Now what do I do?” she said to the deserted, musty room.
    “You will have to tidy the kitchen, I’m afraid, my dear,” said Great-Uncle William’s tired, kindly voice out of thin air. “I apologize for leaving so much laundry. Please open my suitcase for more complicated instructions.”
    Charmain shot the suitcase a look. So Great-Uncle William had meant to leave it, then. “In a minute,” she said to it. “I haven’t unpacked formyself yet.” She picked up her two bags and marched with them to the only other door. It was at the back of the room and, when Charmain had tried to open it with the hand that held the food bag, then with that hand and with both bags in the other hand, and finally with both hands and with both bags on the floor, she found it led to the kitchen.
    She stared for a moment. Then she dragged her two bags round the door just as it was shutting and stared some more.
    “What a mess !” she said.
    It ought to have been a comfortable, spacious kitchen. It had a big window looking out onto the mountains, where sunlight came warmly pouring through. Unfortunately, the sunlight only served to highlight the enormous stacks of plates and cups piled into the sink and on the draining board and down on the floor beside the sink. The sunlight then went on—and Charmain’s dismayed eyes went with it—to cast a golden glow over the two big canvas laundry bags leaning beside the sink. They were stuffed so full with dirty washing that Great-UncleWilliam had been using them as a shelf for a pile of dirty saucepans and a frying pan or so.
    Charmain’s eyes traveled from there to the table in the middle of the room. Here was where Great-Uncle William appeared to keep his supply of thirty or so teapots and the same number of milk jugs—not to speak of several that had once held gravy. It was all quite neat in its way, Charmain thought, just crowded and not clean.
    “I suppose you have been ill,” Charmain said grudgingly to the thin air.
    There was no reply this time. Cautiously, she went over to the sink, where, she had a feeling, something was missing. It took her a moment or so to realize that there were no taps. Probably this house was so far outside town that no water pipes had been laid. When she looked through the window, she could see a small yard outside and a pump in the middle of it.
    “So I’m supposed to go and pump water and then bring it in, and then what?” Charmain demanded. She looked over at the dark, empty fireplace. It wassummer, after all, so naturally there was no fire, nor anything to burn that she could see. “I heat the water?” she said. “In a dirty saucepan, I suppose, and—Come to think of it, how do I wash? Can’t I ever have a bath? Doesn’t he have any bedroom, or a bathroom at all?”
    She rushed to the small door beyond the fireplace and dragged it open. All Great-Uncle William’s doors seemed to need the strength of ten men to open, she thought angrily. She could almost feel the weight of magic holding them shut. She found herself looking into a small pantry. It had nothing on its shelves apart from a small crock of butter, a stale-looking loaf, and a large bag mysteriously labeled CIBIS CANINICUS that seemed to be full of