Master of the Fallen Chairs

Soon after thirteen-year-old Kim Greenwood arrives at Skirl, a vast old family house, he becomes aware of a frantic scurrying in the corridors, which hints at another dimension. Skirl has a house within a house and it teems with terrifying creatures.

This is the domain of the ageless Alba Hockmuth, who glides with demonic ease between the dead and the living, the past and the present, and is hellbent on Kim's demise.

But help arrives in the most unusual form of Iggy Ma-tuu Clava. In a race against time, he and Kim must discover the secrets of the curse which lies in a painting by the Master of the Fallen Chairs.

This is to say nothing - well, as little as possible - about the Great Auk, the last and undoubtedly the most indignant of her species, who somehow manages to remain alive and flipping in the strange conditions of the House at Skirl.