House of the Moon Queen

Chapter One

The Young Master chuckled with excitement as he slipped away from the breakfast table. He peered along the passage that led towards the playroom, where robot AM-10 would already be laying out the trains, but he did not go that way. Instead, he opened the seldom-used door that led to the older part of the house. It unlatched easily, and he slipped through, feeling a thrill of excitement as he set out on his secret expedition. Sunlight from the high windows gleamed on his golden hair as he hurried along, enjoying the slap of his footsteps on the bare stone floors and the flicker and rustle of summer leaves from outside. He thought of AM-10, diligently at work assembling the railway, and grinned. Playing trains usually took them until lunch, and then after lunch there would be games outside in the grounds, but today the Young Master wanted to do something different. The boy thought of the room he had seen during yesterday's hide-and-seek, and as he hurried along he felt as if he was playing hide-and-seek again, except that this time AM-10 was unaware of the game.

He slowed down at the large scary room full of ancient, cruel-looking hunting equipment, walking the length of it cautiously, before coming to the foot of a broad flight of stairs. Here he paused, as he had done when he had come this way before, because around the walls of the stairwell stood several huge silver statues of women. The Young Master knew that these were robots, but of a different kind to AM-10 and the rest who looked after him. These merely stood there in silence, as if listening to everything that went on in the house. As he crept up the stairs, the Young Master glanced at the reflection of his face in their shining bodies.

'I'm only playing a game,' he whispered guiltily, but the silver women, as ever, made no response. At the top of the stairs, he ran along another corridor. Not far now. He sprinted towards the special room and turned the door handle.

The place looked just as mysterious as before. Just enough light came through the leaded windows for him to see some chairs, a table, and rows and rows of glass-fronted cupboards. But the things he had seen inside the cupboards were what excited him most - rows of flat black things with gold markings. From his glimpse of this room yesterday, the Young Master had felt he almost remembered them, as if from a dream. The glass door of the cupboard rattled slightly as he tugged at the little handle. Then he reached inside to draw out one of the flat things. He lifted it down and carried it across to the table, where he opened it up, and then gaped in amazement. It was full of papers, all gathered together at one side, and covered in markings. This was so exciting! Why had AM-10 never brought him to this room? As the Young Master turned page after page, the words in the book reflected back across his eyes, but he could not read, and so the words did not have the power to unlock his thoughts or memories.

He turned at the slight sound of another robot entering the room. It was U-3. The U-series robots never spoke, although they could contact AM-10, even from a distance. A faint clicking came from U-3's head. The Young Master knew that it was in touch with AM-10 now, and he knew that this game was over. AM-10 would already be hurrying through the corridors to collect him.

Sure enough, just a few minutes later, the robot arrived. 'It is not often we find you in the Library, Sir,' AM-10 said as he stood in the doorway.

'No, AM-10. But look what I've found!' The Young Master eagerly showed the robot the book. 'See the little shapes? There are just a few kinds of them, but they're repeated over and over again, all in different combinations.'

'A most intriguing discovery, Sir,' AM-10 replied coolly. 'But now surely it is time to run the trains?'

The Young Master nodded happily and, leaving the book on the table, followed AM-10 out from the room. U-3 remained behind.

'I have assembled a very large railway for us, Sir,' AM-10 said and went on to describe the double track, the stations, and the bridges he had built, but as he spoke his head made the clicking noise that meant he was contacting another robot.

'AM-10 ---> U-3 : Thank you for alerting me to the Young Master's presence in the Library.'

'U-3 ---> AM-10: He had not been in that room for long. Shall I destroy the books?'

'AM-10 ---> U-3 : Destruction remains unnecessary, but please inform me immediately if the Young Master ever returns to the Library again.'

Chapter Two

The taxi drove up the hill.

'I remember coming up here as a kid,' the cab driver said. 'All the houses here had already been taken by the old Superheroes even then. They all wanted to live here. Me and the other kids, we used to go exploring. We'd climb the trees and watch while they had their alterations made to each house. If they saw you, they'd chase you away. One kid, they almost killed him when he got too interested, so then we didn't come this way very much anymore. Which one did you say you were going to?'

'Crystal House,' Louise Bale replied. 'But I don't know where it is or what it looks like because I've never been here before.'

'So how come you're visiting one of the old Superheroes? There are hardly any of them left alive now. They're all slowly dying off, one by one.'

'That's right. My aunt was Agnes Bale, and she's just recently died. That's why I've come. She's left me the house we're going to - Crystal House.'

'I'm sorry.'

'That's OK. I never knew her.'

'She was one of them, wasn't she? She was the one they used to call the Moon Queen.'

The taxi drove on up the hill among the towering trees.

'I never even knew about her before she died,' Louise said. 'I never really thought about the Superheroes at all until I got the letter saying I'd inherited the house. I still don't properly know who my aunt was or what she did.'

'I remember some about her, Ma'am. I used to have all the comics. I used to like the pictures of them all flying through the air and of their fights. Battles with Supervillains. Were you interested in those fights? I suppose not.'

'No. But I have seen a fight.' It was difficult for Louise to keep it in. Just say the words, she thought to herself, tell people often enough and I might get it all out of my head. 'It wasn't a Superhero who was in this particular fight - it was me.'

The driver looked at Louise in the mirror as he caught the edge of fear in her voice.

'I have to tell people about it sometimes,' Louise said, 'because I'm still trying to make sense of it myself.'

In the mirror, the taxi man's face looked worried. He tried to change the subject by repeating something he'd heard on the news about President Rayonier's grab for the southern Oil Lands, but it was as if Louise never heard him.

'I had a boyfriend called Jeff,' she said. 'Jeff Butler. He loved the Superheroes and he knew all about them.'

'Go on,' the taxi driver said, resigned, turning the wheel on a sharp turn. The cab was old and did not have power steering.

'Jeff was actually writing a book about the Superheroes, and he had just been in touch with one of them called Conway Johns. Johns used to be T-Man, and Jeff said he was probably the most famous of them all. Jeff was so pleased to make contact with him.'

'I know about T-Man. Good ol' Cup-of-Tea Man. Got his autograph as a kid,' the taxi driver enthused, still trying to change the direction of the conversation.

'I never met Johns myself, but Jeff corresponded with him for a few weeks, and then one day Jeff was invited over to the house where Johns lived. He was excited, like a little kid.'

'Conway Johns never had any of the houses up here,' the taxi driver said. 'He never had a house on this hill. Nor anywhere else in Crescent City. He always lived in his own town, Steel Ring City.'

'That's right, Steel Ring City, that's where I come from. I'd thought things were going well between me and Jeff. Jeff was nice but he was always into this Superhero thing. He was so interested in them.

'I was waiting at home for him. When he got back from seeing T-Man I was going to make him dinner and let him tell me all about it. But he came back early. It was a long time before we were meant to have the food.' Louise stopped. The taxi man checked her in the mirror and saw tears in her eyes.

'I'll stop the car if you need some air. Don't worry, I'll stop the meter.'

'No, that's OK.' Louise touched the solid bodywork of the car, as if she was more comfortable in motion, as if she had to keep running.

'I started making the food. I was by the stove, and I was talking to Jeff, calling through to him in the next room, but he didn't answer. So I began to get a bit annoyed. And then suddenly he was in the kitchen with me, and he was angry too. Something had gone wrong with his visit to Conway Johns. I hadn't noticed. Then he started yelling, telling me that I was stupid, as if it was all my fault. It was almost as if he was out of his mind. I'd never seen him like that before.'

'Then what?'

'He got hold of me and...'

'Yeah?'

'He pushed my face down onto the lighted stove. And it burned away all my hair. Look.'

Louise pulled away her blonde hairpiece to reveal her bald scalp beneath. The skin had been replaced, but it was white with marks that continued right down onto her forehead. The cab driver stared into the mirror. Louise felt the car's wheels rumble along the edge of the grass verge.

'Guess why he was so angry,' she said.

'I don't know,' the cab driver said. 'I don't know why.'

'Just because, when he arrived at T-Man's house, stupid T-Man had changed his mind and wouldn't let him in. That was all!'

'He was disappointed then,' the taxi man said. 'But you're right. He did go too far. Not far for us now, though,' he added gratefully, 'we're nearly there.'

'But that wasn't the worst thing about that day.'

'I'm sure it wasn't, Ma'am. Are you sure you want to go on talking about it? You don't want to go working yourself up. That's not good.'

'Jeff must have been scared by what he'd done, because he just went away, out of the flat.'

'Just up this next rise and we're there.'

At the brow of the hill, Louise saw a massive white wall. The car slowed, they turned in through a gateway, and then she saw the house. It was white like the wall, but the shape of it was made up of curves and squares, like an art-deco house. It was surrounded by a forest of sick-looking trees.

'This is the place,' the taxi man said.

Louise leaned forward. 'Let me finish. You can leave your meter running. The thing was that I was sitting there with my head all burned, and I saw that the TV was showing Conway Johns' house, the place where Jeff had gone, and it was showing what had happened there later, after Jeff had come home. Conway Johns' house had been attacked by Morthwil, one of the Supervillains.'

'Yeah? I've heard of Morthwil. I remember hearing about him. Didn't know he was still alive.'

'The TV had all this video from the security cameras in Conway Johns' house, and it showed Morthwil in there. He came right through one of the walls, then he went and stood in the middle of each room, his arms sprang out like hammers, and he smashed and wrecked