The Children Grim and the Urrut's Secret: The Children Grim, #1

By JM van Zyl

Bella did not expect the orphanage to look so strange, then again, she did not expect a lot of things, like the fantastic stories her grandmother had told her to be true, or the invisible monster stalking them to be real...

• Language: English
• Publisher: JM van Zyl
• Release date: Jun 24, 2019
• ISBN: 9781393348153

Book preview

A Difficult Day

Atiny taxi sputtered up the steep hill but could not quite manage to make it to the top. It slid back a little as the driver changed gears, then burst forward with a roar to finally conquer its nemesis.

Inside were four young passengers, squeezed together uncomfortably in the back seat where they clung to whatever they could find to keep from falling over. The driver, however, did not care that his passengers all thought they might be stuck in a tumble dryer. He was in a hurry and determined not to stay near that creepy place any longer than absolutely necessary.

The Hilltop, the place where that awful building stood - if one could even call it that.

The people in town all said it was cursed and refused to take the short drive up to the top of the steep cliffs, preferring to take the long road through the swamps instead. But the driver, who may or may not have been called Thomas - the children could not quite make out what was written beneath the dirty label stuck to his dashboard, did not have a choice. He had been given very clear instructions on where to deliver his passengers - the exact place everyone in town wanted to avoid.

Thomas, or perhaps not Thomas, did not believe in curses, but he did believe in luck, and that orphanage looked like it housed every bad bit of it.

The taxi skid to a halt in front of the dark building, sending up a cloud of grey dust that blocked the view in every direction. Thomas jumped out of the cramped vehicle and proceeded to swiftly, and rather violently, rid his small vehicle of the children's belongings.

Get out! he yelled at them as he hurled a suitcase over his shoulder. He was desperate to get away as soon as possible, but a large, heavy trunk was stuck in his car's boot and refused to budge, despite his frenzied attempts to remove it.

Get out! He looked out from behind the car and yelled at the children who were still trying to untangle themselves enough to exit his vehicle. Thomas had not noticed before, but his heart was racing. Every time he yanked on the stubborn trunk, he could feel a flutter in his stomach that made his pulse quicken even more. It was that place! That strange building that towered like a shadow over the town. Perhaps it really was cursed.

Something moved...

On the opposite side of the road, next to the barren, grey rocks jutting out of the ground like enormous splinters - something stirred. He could not see what it was, only the trail of dust left behind by its motion.

Get out! Quickly! he shrieked.

The children were mostly out of the car, but Thomas decided to hurry them along by grabbing whoever was still inside and pulling them out, something not easily accomplished with a small, two-door Nimsetta.

Ouch! Let go! A red-haired girl yelled at him and launched a kick in his direction, but due to a serious lack of hand-eye coordination, connected with her brother instead.

Argh! Watch where you're kicking! he yelled.

I didn't do it on purpose! She sort of apologized after finally managing to extricate herself from the tiny vehicle.

Thomas, having narrowly missed a well-deserved kick, returned his attention to the stubborn luggage, which he attacked with renewed vigor.

Please, be careful! An older girl, dressed in an oversized coat, pleaded. However, Thomas was much too terrified. That thing across the road had moved again, sending little pebbles falling onto the dusty tarmac. He still could not see it, but whatever it was, he did not intend to stay there long enough to find out. He gathered all his panicked strength, and with a final heave, managed to lift the trunk out of his tiny car.

Without even glancing at the children, Thomas dropped the trunk as soon as gravity would let him, then dove into his Nimsetta where he nervously fumbled with the key while keeping his eyes glued to the side of the cliff.

The older girl was quite upset at the treatment both they and their luggage had received from the careless driver. In between her missed attempts at catching some of the suitcases he had tossed over his shoulder, she had tried to protest the unacceptable treatment with a few half-spoken sentences. No, wait! ...please be..., but to no avail, ...careful! was all she could manage before Thomas and his taxi sped away in a cloud of dust, leaving the disheartened children alone on the side of the road.

The four defeated orphans stared around them in silence at the thick grey fog. Dust hung in the air, slowly swirling and sinking closer to the ground where it hovered for a last brief moment, before finally giving up and dropping hopelessly to the ground.

Bella looked at the mess that was their luggage and sighed. This was a day they had been dreading for a long time and had hoped that it would not come, but it did. Now they were far from home, stranded in front of the strange orphanage, with dusty clothes and dusty luggage that, thanks to the rude driver, had even more dents and scrapes than before.

Clean yourselves up. We at least have to look presentable, she sighed and slapped some dust off her coat. Her siblings nodded in sad agreement, then proceeded to slap, shake and sneeze off the grey dirt that seemed to cover everything on the Hill Top, making it look like an ash heap at the back of a dodgy crematorium.

Bella straightened up, her long brown hair hanging neatly down her shoulders and over the collar of the bulky coat, which looked like it had belonged to someone a little older. She was only thirteen, almost fourteen, but had long since been like a mother to her siblings who were all younger than she was.

Next to her stood her brave twelve-year-old brother, John-Karl - they called him Boo. He was always ready to protect them and helped Bella a lot with the ten-year-old twins, Gerrie and Gort.

Poor Gerrie and poor Gort. Quiet, shy, freckles, wild red hair, and names they did not want. Gerrie was a girl with a boys' name and Gort was a boy with a noise for a name. Well, perhaps it was a noise, or a machine part, or something used in old recipes.

Why their parents had given them such odd names no one knew. At first, people had thought Gerrie was short for Gertrude, and Gort had been spelled wrong, or perhaps it was a strange word that someone had accidentally said backward, but no...

Gerrie was just Gerrie, and Gort was just Gort.

At least Bella and John-Karl had normal names. Bella was short for Annabella, the same name as Nana Annie, and John-Karl was another old family name of a distant ancestor who had met his untimely end by jumping out of a plane and into a volcano - he had actually tried to avoid the volcano, but fate and a tangled parachute saw to a stickier end.

That same dark fate had also set its sights on the children Grim. Since they were infants, they had been peppered with bad luck. Shortly after the birth of the twins, Mother and Father Grim mysteriously disappeared without leaving even as much as a fingerprint.

A small army of police constables and inspectors arrived at their home. They shook out everything in the house so that their bloodhounds could sniff and their magnifying glasses could magnify. Everywhere flashing lights and officials scurried about, but all to no avail.

Bella was just four years old when that happened. She could not remember much about it, all she could remember was that she had been very scared and had cried until Nana Annie came to fetch them.

Nana lived alone in a tiny cottage on the shore of the lake, and when the children came to live with her they had no choice but to squeeze in where ever they could find room. Bella and Boo on the couch in front of the fireplace, and the twins in their crib next to Nana's bed. The cottage only had three tiny rooms, a living room, a bedroom, and a tiny bathroom. The kitchen was squeezed in next to the fireplace, and when Nana made food, the whole house smelled of cinnamon, spice, and all things nice.

Even though the house was small, it was cozy and full of love. Outside, the green fields surrounding the cottage were full of flowers, and in summer, lots of butterflies and birds came to visit them. When the seasons changed and it became cold, all the children found a cozy spot in front of the fireplace where they could drink hot chocolate and listen to the amazing stories Nana told.

But she became sick.

It was not the usual sick that medicines could make better. Nana laughed and giggled like a child and sometimes did strange things, like forgetting to comb her hair and telling the children about odd purple cats that walked about the property at night. Some of the cats were purple with pink stripes and others were purple with black spots, but all of them were definitely purple!

At first, the children found these stories funny and played along with their grandma, but later Bella and Boo realized that Nana was not playing. She was sick, and she would not be able to take care of them much longer. They would have to move away from home to live in an orphanage.

The children stared at the hopeless scenery surrounding the dark building. Ashen dust covered everything, from the broken asphalt to the dead weeds surrounding it. An equally dusty footpath lead up to the orphanage and the cliff on which it was rather perilously perched. Even the children looked grey and dusty as if they had already become a part of the cheerless spectacle.

Bella gave the strange orphanage another apprehensive look.

The towering structure looked more like three houses that some crazy tornado had stacked on top of each other, and fastened with an odd assortment of ropes, planks and old bent nails. Each of the top houses moved independently in the light morning breeze, slowly turning from this side to that, until a rope somewhere became too short and tugged it back with a dull creak, just to repeat the entire process in a different direction.

As if moving buildings were not bad enough, the top floor of the upper house looked like it was home to some very large bats that were angrily chasing away a murder of crows. The huge bats flew quite nimbly into and out of the large open windows while screeching at the offensive birds. The crows soon yielded, and flew off to the distant mountains, their screeches echoing behind them.

The bats, and crows, and the strange movement of the buildings gave the orphanage a very creepy feel, almost as if it was alive in some way, even though everything around it seemed dead. Bella clasped her hands around the collar of her bulky coat as if that would help to keep the fear out, but it did not.

Be brave, Bella..., she whispered to herself while trying to muster all her courage. So far, the day had been a lot more difficult than she had thought it would be, and not just for her. Her siblings all looked like they were trying their best not to cry, even though it was very difficult.

Bella tried to think of something comforting to say to them. Come on, she said. It's just for a little while, just until Nana Annie gets better... Her brothers both nodded sadly while her little sister tried to stifle some sniffles with an old doily she fished out of her pocket. They picked up their luggage and started up the craggy path leading to the porch.

Boo picked up the heaviest suitcases as he always did. He walked behind Bella and the twins, his mind filled with racing thoughts about Nana and their old town, many miles away to the North. Just like the rest of his siblings, his heart ached for his beloved grandmother and the familiar surroundings of the place they had called home.

Why did they have to come here?

The Hill Top was strange, and not just because it was new to him. Something about the place seemed off, unnatural, even menacing. There were dead plants everywhere. In between the stones of the path, old and cracked, leading up to the orphanage where two dead trees stood solemnly beside it.

The footpath was not long, just a few steps, but every one of them felt as if it took hours to make. Boo's legs felt stiff, his feet like lead as he dragged them up the path. In the silence of the Hill Top, each step he took sounded like sand scratching and scraping over the crumbling stones. It was the loudest sound the children could hear, apart from the creaking of the house and ropes, and in the distance, the faint sound of waves crashing on rocks far beneath the orphanage.

What was that...?

Boo was snapped out of his sad thoughts by a strange sound behind them. He was certain he had heard something, something near the splintered rocks, almost exactly where the taxi driver had left them a few moments earlier. He squinted at the scenery. The dust had settled back over the rocks and road and whatever weeds had once managed to grow near them, but apart from the dismal landscape, he could not see anything that seemed odd.

Nothing moved or showed any sign of having made a sound, yet he felt like something was staring at him. Something was hiding among the grey rocks and dirt, but what? Boo rubbed his glasses on his shirt to see if cleaning them would perhaps help to reveal the origin of the sound, but no...

All he could see was just the same grey desolation and a couple of dead leaves moving in the morning breeze. The other children had apparently not noticed the noise and had continued with their sad trek up the path to the porch. Perhaps he had imagined it, or perhaps it had just been the wind. Up there in the Hill Top, the wind could pick up quite suddenly to blow stuff about.

That was how people said the orphanage had gotten there, in a wild tornado. Nana Annie always told them about a devastating storm that had broken out on the lake and its dark waters.

Nimmermeer - The Never lake. A lake full of secrets.

Watch out for the water! Nana warned them. There are things in the lake... creatures! They crawl out at night in search of prey! Stay away from the dark water!

Boo always thought it was just a story Nana Annie told them to scare them into behaving responsibly so that they would not take any unnecessary risks by playing in the lake at night. It was, after all, quite dangerous to play in the lake's dark water at night, even without strange creatures and scary stories. One's feet could get tangled in the mass of roots near the shore, and in the darkness, it would be difficult to see how to free oneself.

Nana also told them about other strange things that had happened on the lake, about monstrous fish that could bite a ship in half with their enormous jaws, and ghost ships haunting the dark water by floating around in a thick, green fog.

There were even stories about mere-people. One of the townsfolk squealed that one such mere-person had grabbed his ankle while he had been fishing on the dock, and had tried to drag him into the lake to drown him! Nana Annie always laughed when she told that story. Her stories were colorful, interesting, and made Boo laugh. But as he got older, he did not believe all of them anymore. Perhaps they were just stories.

Nana told them about a terrible storm that had broken out on the lake. Waves crashed into the shore and docks. Above the stormy water, clouds as black as pitch swirled and flashed with thunder. The wind was so fierce that the townspeople feared their homes would be blown away, and so they spent the entire night waiting sleeplessly while the howling wind and rain pelted their homes from all sides.

At dawn, the storm finally broke, and the weary townsfolk could come out to survey the damage. As far as they could see, the ground was covered in broken branches and debris. The streets were strewn with rubble and all the trees had random bits of junk and people's washing stuck in their branches, but that was not all...

Some houses had been blown to pieces, and many people had gotten hurt, some badly.

The fierce wind had not just blown things away, it had also dropped some things off.  There were chairs, tables and other pieces of furniture the townspeople did not recognize, along with branches and leaves of strange plants they had never seen before. One of the plants even had teeth, and had tried to bite the mayor! But the strangest of all was the tall building that had suddenly appeared on the cliff above the town.

An odd, red building that proved to be even stranger on closer inspection. It turned out to be, not one, but three houses, balancing on top of each other. The houses had been tied together with long yellow ropes, which dangled off the side of the cliff where they were still connected to an assortment of colorful tarps.

The town's inspector determined that the tarps were actually the remains of a large balloon and that this balloon had been the reason for the colorful house's safe landing. Surprisingly, the house and all of its flowery-painted furniture were fairly unscathed, even the cups and saucers in the cupboards were all still in one piece.

Whom the strange house belonged to or where it had come from the townspeople could only guess. Perhaps it was a circus house due to all the bright colors, some said. No, doesn't it look like the houses to the east of the lake? some guessed. No-no! It was definitely from the lands on the other side of the Dragon Mountains. Just look at all the strange plants that had come with it, even a People-Eater that had tried to eat the mayor!

So they kept on guessing, and the more they guessed, the more terrified they became. Why had this happened? Where had all these strange things come from? The townspeople decided to gather all the strange things the storm had brought to their quiet town and hide them away in a large warehouse on the outskirts of town.

All the odd furniture and pieces of this and that, as well as all the strange plants and animals. Everything was labeled, tagged and put away in crates or jars, even the People-Eater who, ironically, got a place in the mayor's office. He kept it in a birdcage and happily told all his visitors how the little plant had almost bitten his arm off.

But their fear of the terrible storm remained, and life in the small town was never the same. The townspeople kept looking at the lake and the clouds, terrified that the two would conspire against them once more. After they had fixed all the storm damage, they decided to give the town a new name, something that would be a better fit than the cheerful name it had had.

They decided to change the name to Bitterwind, as a reminder of the terrible day when the wind had made their lives so bitter.

The Bitterwinders did not know what to do about the red house on the cliff. The Stormhouse as they called it, was too big to put away, too sturdy to break down, and too bold to overlook. Leave it out! some said fearfully. Push it off the cliff, into the lake! others suggested. Give it to the orphanage...? someone said.

Yes, that sounds like a bright idea! The orphanage's roof is full of holes and the children have to take turns to keep the walls propped up. The Stormhouse will be perfect for them, and up there in the high cliff tops they will be out of our hair to boot!

So the Stormhouse became the new orphanage, and for generations, it gave shelter to the small people that the rest of the world did not want.

Years later, four small people were standing on the orphanage's porch, fearful of what lay waiting for them behind the faded grey wood that had once been so colorfully painted. Boo was not sure about Nana Annie's stories, not a hundred percent sure, but there he stood in front of one of her stories that had turned out to be true.

The old orphanage was not a cheerful red anymore. The once vibrant colors had faded over the years and remnants of it could now only be seen in its deepest cracks and corners, but you had to look carefully to see it. The painted flowers that had once surrounded the windows and door had faded completely and now only looked like a lighter shade of grey.

The entire orphanage had an air of neglect as if no one had bothered to do maintenance on it for years. In some places, the once strong wood had started to rot, and in others, sharp splinters jutted out where the wood had been damaged.

One such damaged spot caught Gerrie's attention. She carefully dragged her finger over the rough mark in the wood. A pretty blue feather was stuck in the splinters, but she was too timid to take it, and instead gestured to Gort who looked quite surprised at his sister's request.

How could Gerrie think about her feather collection now? Gort felt very unsure. What if someone had put the feather there on purpose? He would get into trouble if he took it, and Bella had made them promise to be on their best behavior.

But on the other hand, it was just a feather...

Gort stepped closer, he reached out to take the pretty feather, but before he could touch it, a sudden gust swept it up in the air. The tiny feather shimmered for a moment, then fluttered to the other side of the porch where it blew over the railings and tangled vines covered in the biggest thorns Gort had ever seen.

The thick vines grew all over the porch and railings, and in some places were so dense he could not see past them. The grey vines were covered in the scariest looking thorns that poked and twisted in all directions. Some of the dark spikes were as long as Gort's fingers and looked razor-sharp, there were even some dead leaves stuck in them that had been blown up by the wind.

Dry leaves rustled over the ground to the other side of the building where a light breeze quickly swept them over the sheer cliff.  That steep fall was only a few steps away from the orphanage, a situation that did not look safe to Boo at all.

There were no safety railings or even just a sign to warn people of impending doom. The only thing separating the orphanage from the sheer drop was the tangle of thorny vines that grew around the entire lower floor like a thick, scary hedge.

The decrepit orphanage and everything around it looked extremely unsafe as if the slightest breeze or even just a hard push could send everything tumbling down the cliff to shatter on the lake's sharp rocks far below.

Boo cast an uneasy glance at the porch as they climbed up the three curvy steps, being very careful to avoid the poky vines clinging to the railings on both sides. Their footsteps creaked on the old planks, making Boo and the other children try extra hard to be as quiet as possible.  In the silence of the Hill Top, they could almost hear their own breathing.

Then Boo heard something. It sounded like leaves cracking when stepped on, like the sound of slow footsteps somewhere behind them. He froze in his tracks.

Crack...! There it was again!

This time the other children heard the sound as well. They all turned to look at the neglected footpath - perhaps it was the orphanage's caretaker or one of the children. Once more, they heard the cracking of leaves being trodden on by someone - or something, but they could not see anything apart from the grey rocks and bleak landscape.

Hello...? Bella asked. She looked around to see who could be causing the sounds, but there was no one in sight.

Crack... Crack...

That was very odd! They could all hear the dry leaves cracking, but none of them could see who was stepping on them.

Is someone there? Boo was puzzled, and alarmed, more so than the other children. Is someone there? Hello? he asked again, but no one answered.

According to Hinky and Pink's List of Extremely Dangerous Activities - a reprehensible book no responsible parent should ever let near their children - being stalked by an invisible monster was more common than people thought.

The problem was that being invisible, you did not really know if they were there, or what they looked like, or what they looked like they had for breakfast, i.e. cow or cucumber. Very few monsters were vegan, though some did try converting to a vegetarian diet for a couple of weeks. Unfortunately, it did not go down well.

Unfortunate for the children indeed, seeing as the List had a specific category detailing the woeful circumstances they currently found themselves in.

In the section, Hidden Horrors, the List assigns at least forty-five danger points to any situation involving the unobservable, twenty more if the encounter occurs in a perilous place, and another fifteen if the aforementioned perilous place was also cursed.

This meant that the luckless children, currently found themselves in a situation with a danger rating of eighty, but minus one because it was early morning, and fewer terrible things seem to happen before they have had a chance to get coffee.

The footsteps sounded like they were getting closer. They came from the same place near the rocks where he first felt like someone was watching him. Step by step, they moved toward the orphanage and the scared children. It was as if some invisible thing was walking towards them, crunching dead leaves beneath its feet.

The footsteps neared the porch where their pace suddenly quickened, then sounded like they dashed behind the tangled vines before hitting the railing with a dull thud and a whimpered groan.

The vines growing on the railings shuddered, sending dust drifting onto the floor. They were so thick and knotted that Boo could not see through them to whatever may be hiding behind. Who or whatever had walked across the path and through the dried leaves was now just behind the railings, and did not answer any of their greetings.

The air filled with ghostly silence. The sound of the crushing leaves had stopped, and all the children could hear was the house's soft groaning and the waves far below.

Good day...! Bella leaned forward to greet the invisible noisemaker. We are the Grim children, er... Children Grim... she announced uneasily, thinking it could be the orphanage's caretaker.

They told us to come here and...  A sudden crack of leaves behind the railings startled her, making her jump back along with the other children.

They retreated to the large, double door in the center of the narrow porch. The children huddled closely together, placing their dented suitcases between them and the strange noise behind the railings. Boo was sure he could hear someone breathing.

It was odd, out-of-breath wheezing like Nana Annie always had when her asthma bothered her. But something about it was different as if it was not a human that was breathing, but something else...

Perhaps it was one of the lake monsters Nana had always warned them about, but she said they crawled out of the lake at night, out of the dark water, and this was early morning.

Boo swallowed a lump in his throat. He really hoped it