‘What are you doing?’ Arnie grabbed Hal from behind and wrenched him away from the train.
‘Arnie! Help me!’ Hal gasped. ‘The boiler’s got no water left. The firebox is still burning.’ He pointed, and Arnie turned his head. ‘We have to do something.’
Arnie stared at the locomotive. Beyond it, through the arch, he saw Ozan and Hilda, each under one of Aksel’s arms, trying to help the heavy man walk. He looked at Hal. ‘What’s happening?’
‘Someone attacked Aksel,’ Hal said, wriggling free from Arnie’s grasp. ‘He sent me. We have to get the train away from the house before it explodes.’
‘Explodes?’ Arnie looked stunned.
‘Help me!’ Hal cried out, returning to the coupling. ‘There’s no time!’
Arnie came to his side and together they lifted the iron bar. The tension on the buffers eased. The loco was uncoupled and Hal jumped up the ladder on to the footplate. The cabin was hot, the furnace fire roaring white and stuffed with coal. The shovel had been tossed to the ground. Hal’s heart was beating fast. He looked at the dials, all with needles shuddering in red zones. The Class 99 was ancient, more than a hundred years old. The older an engine was, the more prone it was to rust and corrosion. He looked from levers to wheels, praying Aksel had replaced anything in the boiler likely to break under pressure.
‘If the engine explodes,’ Arnie shouted, ‘it will destroy the house.’ He looked up at the tower that loomed over his grandfather’s room. ‘Where’s Opa?’
‘Asleep. In bed.’
Their eyes met as they had the same thought. If the engine exploded, the tower would fall and Arnold would be killed.
‘Ozan!’ Arnie roared, as Hilda and her brother staggered with Aksel into the yard. ‘Komm mit mir!’ And he spun round, running into the house, shouting, ‘Feuer! Feuer! Raus aus dem Haus!’
Aksel leaned against the courtyard wall so that Ozan could run after Arnie. Hilda shouted to Hal. ‘Aksel says release the brake valve.’
Hal’s hand went to a red lever. It was hot to the touch.
I can do this, he thought, and took the brakes off. The train slunk forward at a snail’s pace.
He heard Aksel shout something in German.
‘Throttle!’ Hilda shouted, translating. ‘Accelerate!’
Hal gulped and pushed the lever he hoped was the regulator. With a whisht of steam, the steam engine crawled along the tracks. His mouth was dry and his hands were shaking, but the locomotive was moving. Smoke billowed out of the chimney. Hal grabbed the rope of the bell, ringing it madly to alert people of the danger. He rang it and rang it as the engine rolled through the arch, out of the courtyard.
In the darkening twilight and swirling snow, Hal looked along the tracks and saw something that made his stomach lurch. The points at the fork in the track were set to send the engine into the train shed.
‘Hilda!’ he shouted, motioning to the tracks as she started running towards him. ‘The points! Change the points!’
Accelerating to a sprint, Hilda passed the crawling loco, making it to the lever. She grabbed the metal bar and heaved at it, but it didn’t budge.
As the engine closed in on her, Hal felt the panic in his chest bubble to boiling point. He shouted encouragement as she flung herself round to the other side of the lever, yanked up the trigger, throwing her body weight at it, pushing it with all her might. The points creaked as they shifted, clunking into place just before the iron wheels passed over the junction, taking the engine away from the train shed, towards Dead Man’s Pass.
He gave Hilda a thumbs-up as he eased the regulator open a little more, praying there was enough steam in the boiler to get the little tank engine far enough away from the house.
Aksel, who was propped up against the garden wall, holding his head with one hand, waved at him with the other. Hal waved back, and Aksel shouted, ‘Spring, du Idiot! Du bringst dich noch um!’
Hal gave him a thumbs-up. He couldn’t believe it – he was doing it! He was driving the locomotive away from Schloss Kratzenstein. With every passing second, the engine moved a little further from the house and everyone in it . . . and then he had a thought that made his blood run cold. ‘Herman!’ Hal exclaimed. He was in the tower. If the train exploded and brought it down, he would surely die!
Arnie and Ozan were saving Arnold. Hal looked back over his shoulder. Hilda was helping Aksel get to his feet. No one was helping Herman. Hal looked at the dials. How big was a train explosion? He didn’t know how far away he had to go for Herman to be safe.
Leaning out of the cab, he looked along the track to Dead Man’s Pass. If he could stop the engine in the cutting, the high rock walls might contain the explosion and protect the house. He willed the train forward, terrified to touch a lever or a dial in case it stopped the locomotive or triggered the explosion. Time seemed to slow down as Hal looked from the cab to the rails, to Dead Man’s Pass. He ignored the voice in his brain that was screaming You’re driving a bomb! You’re driving a bomb!
‘C’mon, Ninety-nine, you can do it,’ he said, coaxing the engine along the rails, wishing it would move faster.
He poked his head out of the cab again, gauging the distance to Dead Man’s Pass, and glimpsed a woman in grey, standing on the rocks. But when he looked again she was gone. He scolded himself. He knew now that the Kratzenstein curse was only a story. There was no witch. His heart was pounding so hard he felt sick. He studied the sight glass, tapping it, and the needle moved. It seemed to be saying there was a tiny bit of water left in the boiler. He looked at the levers: one of them had to be the inductor that released the water into the boiler. His hand trembled as he lowered it on to what he thought was the right one.
‘NIET!’ came a cry from above.
Hal looked up as cloaked figure dropped into the cab. He cried out, gripping the lever as he struggled, feeling himself being grabbed round his middle and hurled off the footplate, yanking the lever down.
Despite the cushion of snow, Hal hit the ground hard, but the person who had hold of him didn’t let go, rolling over and over. An ear-splitting boom shook the earth beneath him, blasting all the sound and light out of the world.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
BROTHERS IN ARMS
Hal lay still. His body ached, and a high-pitched noise was ringing in his ears, but as he drew in a deep breath and blinked his eyes open, he knew he was OK. He sat up carefully, finding he was wedged in a niche between boulders at the foot of a granite outcrop along from the cutting.
Steaming pieces of locomotive casing were strewn across the ground as far as he could see. The corpse of the Class 99 was buried in a landslide of rocks and boulders wedged into what was once Dead Man’s Pass. A nauseating spaghetti of metal tubes snaked out and backwards, demonstrating the force of the explosion. The features of the giant skull had been blown apart.
Hal hugged his arms around himself, realizing he was lucky to be alive. The rocks around him had protected him from the blast and the debris. He thought of the figure who had grabbed him and jumped off the footplate. They seemed to have vanished. Whoever it was, they had saved his life.
Carefully testing each bit of his body, he got to his feet. The scene looked like a battlefield. Shrapnel hung from tree branches, smoking and sizzling as it was cooled by the snow. The sky was dark, lit by a full moon, and he saw the silhouettes of bats, frightened from their haunt in the tower by the explosion.
The tower! Hal thought, spinning round, feeling giddy with relief when he saw it was still standing.
Hearing a cry, Hal made out Hilda and Ozan running across the snow towards him. Tears were streaming down Hilda’s face, and she threw her arms out wide as he shuffled towards them.
‘Ich dachte du wärst tot! I thought you were dead!’ She hugged him and he winced.
‘Ouch! I’m a bit bruised.’ He looked at Ozan, scared of the answer to the question he had to ask. ‘Is everyone OK? Is anyone hurt? The tower? Herman?’
‘Yes. Ev
eryone is OK,’ Ozan said, studying Hal with awe. ‘You did it.’
Hilda took his hand, leading him round to the front of the house.
Sitting on the steps up to the front door were Arnie and Herman. Herman was wrapped in his duvet, and Arnie had his arm round him. Arnold was sitting in his wheelchair, looking confused. Every window of Schloss Kratzenstein was blown in.
Aksel was slumped on a low step, and Bertha knelt beside him, holding a cloth to his injured head. Alma cried out when she saw them, pointing, and Clara burst into tears when she saw that he was alive.
Hal suddenly felt very tired. Herman was OK. The house was still standing. His legs turned to jelly, and he stumbled. But Ozan was there, putting Hal’s arm over his shoulder and helping him to the steps.
‘Ist er in Ordnung?’ Alma said, coming to help. She talked with Hilda and Ozan in German. Hal was too tired to try to understand. He was sitting on the ground beside Arnold’s wheelchair, and he realized he could see blue flashing lights in the distance.
‘I’m sorry about your train,’ Hal said, noticing that the old man was staring at it.
‘Nein, Harrison.’ Arnold smiled at him and pointed at the landslide of boulders on the remains of his vintage locomotive. ‘You have broken the curse. Danke schön.’
‘You know you’re going to have to tell everyone the truth about the curse,’ Hal said in a quiet voice, and Arnold nodded.
As the blue lights got closer, Hal saw that it was a line of vehicles. There was an ambulance and four police cars. They came up the drive and skidded to a halt in front of the house. Uncle Nat burst from one of the cars, sprinting to Hal.
‘Hal! What’s happened? Are you OK?’
Hilda launched into an explanation, half in English, half in German, as Uncle Nat looked from her to Hal, the buried locomotive, and back again. He looked horrified.
Then suddenly everyone was talking. Hal found himself sitting on a stretcher as a man looked into his eyes and ears with a tool that had a tiny light on it. Aksel was wheeled away to be taken to hospital. A doctor was interviewing Arnold, who was becoming more animated by the second, while Freya fussed over him. Rada came over to talk with Uncle Nat.
Clara sat down beside Herman, and Bertha sat down beside Arnie, but he didn’t take his arm away from his little brother and Herman kept his head leaned against his chest.
‘Ozan.’ Hal called him over. ‘What happened when you and Arnie went into the house?’
‘We didn’t know if you could move the train far enough,’ Ozan replied. ‘We thought the house was coming down. Arnie screamed for his mum, Clara and Alma all to get out as we ran up to Arnold’s room. When we arrived, Arnie just scooped the old man up and put him in the wheelchair. Then he asked me where Herman was.’ Ozan looked at the ground. ‘In all the drama, I’d forgotten Herman, but Arnie didn’t. I told him Herman was in the tower, and Arnie told me to get his Opa out of the house and helped me get the wheelchair to the lift. Then, because I was using the lift, he ran up the stairs in the tower. Herman was asleep. Arnie wrapped him in his duvet, like a sausage, and carried him in his arms all the way down the stairs. He was coming out of the house as the train exploded. The duvet protected Herman, but Arnie was cut by flying glass.’ Ozan nodded at the brothers on the step. ‘They haven’t moved a centimetre from each other since Bertha sat them both down so she could tend to Arnie’s cuts.’
The ambulance took Aksel to the hospital, and the police spoke to Bertha at length before going into the building.
Uncle Nat sat down beside Hal.
‘Are you OK?’ Hal asked him.
‘Not really. I’m going to be in terrible trouble when your mum finds out that you drove an exploding steam engine.’
Hal gave a weak chuckle. ‘No, I mean is everything OK with the police?’
‘The baron explained to them who we are.’
‘It’s time to tell everyone the truth,’ said Hal, and Uncle Nat nodded.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
BETTER TOGETHER
Clara made hot chocolate and coffee for everyone, using the servants’ kitchen. The police couldn’t be sure how bad the damage was to the back of the house, so the baron, Freya, Rada, Alma, Uncle Nat and Oliver followed Bertha’s instructions, bringing in mattresses and bedding, turning the library into a dormitory for the night. Everyone was being kind and smiling. The brush with catastrophe had reminded them of what was important.
When the hot drinks arrived, they gathered the library chairs into a circle. Arnold wheeled forward, glancing at Hal who smiled encouragingly. Arnold cleared his throat. ‘My beloved family, I will speak in English out of respect for our guests.’ He nodded at Hal and Uncle Nat. ‘My secrets have troubled you for long enough. It is time I told the truth.’ He paused, looking at hands. ‘I . . . I . . .’ His eyes filled with tears.
Hal got up and went to stand beside him. ‘Arnold Kratzenstein is a hero,’ he said. ‘Many years ago, during the Cold War, he risked his life and the family business to help bring about the reunification of Germany, by passing on information he learned about the Soviet Union.’
Everyone stared at Arnold.
‘To create an air of mystery on the mountain that would help explain anything strange people might see, he invented the Kratzenstein curse. He knew the story of Gobel Babelin from the commonplace book in the library, which he’d studied because of his passion for the family business. He told the story of the man dying in the pass and spread rumours about sightings of the witch on the mountain. He boasted of the family’s links to Goethe and Faust.’ He smiled at Arnold. ‘You filled your house with stuffed dead animals, kept goats and thought it funny that people were afraid of the place.’ He looked at Freya, with Belladonna curled up on her lap. ‘You have your father’s sense of humour. You encourage people to think you’re a witch because it amuses you.’
Freya chuckled. ‘This is true.’
‘Opa!’ Arnie exclaimed. ‘You made the curse up?’ He was shocked. ‘All those stories you told me when I was little?’
‘They were just stories, Arnie. I’m sorry if . . .’
‘Ha!’ Arnie exclaimed in delight, looking at Herman, who was still sitting beside him. ‘We’re not cursed!’
‘I’m not,’ Herman replied with a cheeky grin, ‘but you are cursed with a face like a donkey!’ The brothers laughed, giddy with relief.
‘Arnold did such a good job of spreading rumours that when tragedy struck and Manfred died the curse was blamed by friends and family,’ Hal said.
‘The curse took on a life of its own,’ Arnold agreed. ‘I couldn’t control it.’
‘Harrison Strom, how do you know so much?’ Freya asked. ‘He’s not Harrison Strom,’ Ozan said.
‘You’re not?’ Herman looked confused.
‘His name is Harrison Beck, and he’s a detective,’ Ozan told him.
‘But he’s a child.’ Bertha frowned then looked at Uncle Nat. ‘Who are you?’
‘My name is Nathaniel Bradshaw,’ Uncle Nat admitted. ‘I’m Hal’s uncle. We work together.’ He smiled proudly at Hal.
‘I invited them here, at Arnold’s request,’ the baron said. ‘We thought it best if they pretended to be family.’
‘If there’s no curse, then why have all these strange things been happening?’ Clara asked.
‘Sir –’ Hal turned to Arnold – ‘do you remember the first time you saw a woman on top of Dead Man’s Pass?’
‘She came with the winter,’ Arnold replied. ‘I thought she heralded my death.’
‘Did you tell anyone about her?’
Arnold shook his head.
‘You said there was no witch.’ Arnie frowned.
‘Arnold didn’t think she was a witch,’ Hal said.
‘I have always known that if they discovered what I did, taking government secrets across the border, it would be the end of my life,’ Arnold explained.
‘That is when you wrote to me,’ Freya exclaimed.
‘Yes,
’ Arnold replied. ‘I wanted to make amends for the lost years. I am truly sorry, liebling.’
‘A few weeks before you saw the woman on the rocks,’ Hal continued, ‘did Alexander visit you with a proposal that you should sell the house and land and move to Berlin to live with him?’
Looking surprised, Arnold nodded.
‘But your wife and son are buried on this mountain. You love this house. You will never leave.’
Arnold nodded. ‘I wish to end my days here.’
‘Alexander argued with you, and returned to Berlin. Then some weeks later Connie arrived at the house, presenting herself as a nurse who had been hired by Alexander to take care of you.’
Bertha scowled. ‘Alexander did not like me looking after his father.’
‘No.’ Clara frowned. ‘That’s wrong. Alexander told me you’d hired Connie. He thought you were trying to control his father.’
‘Nobody hired Connie,’ Hal said. ‘She told the people here that Alexander had hired her, and then wrote to Alexander, pretending to be Bertha, saying she’d hired a nurse called Connie to look after Arnold.’
Bertha gasped, and everybody looked shocked, including Uncle Nat.
‘Rada, the letters you found in Alexander’s desk – they were from a company called Stromacre?’
Rada nodded. ‘They were about the purchase of the house and land for the purposes of turning the place into a health resort.’
‘And they were signed by Nat Strom,’ Hal said, ‘which is why you thought Uncle Nat was behind all of the strange things that have been happening?’
‘Yes, in one of the letters Nat asks Alexander if he thinks they can persuade his father to change his mind about the sale by playing on his superstitious nature and his fears regarding the family curse.’
‘Not even Alexander knew that Arnold had invented the curse,’ Hal said. ‘It’s become a part of family myth and something that even distant members know about and fear.’ He smiled at Alma.
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