by B G Denvil
The donkey’s eyes glazed as it ate the carrots. Its hair was thickening, looking cleaner and softer, and suddenly the short, muddled fence of wood, scrub and piled stones moved aside, creating a wide gap.
“It will take a deal more food to bring you back to life,” Rosie told the donkey. “You are starved, poor little creature, and worse, perhaps, than Maggs was when I rescued her. So why not you as well, dear? But you have a remarkable lack of wings, so we will have to walk.” She summoned three more carrots, and the small animal followed her as she walked, holding each carrot out behind her.
Walking considerably more slowly than she would have preferred, they ambled back towards the road, Rosie’s hand constantly behind her with a variety of tempting foods. Celery followed carrots, large shrub stalks and leaf, followed by apples, large handfuls of hay and back to carrots. With intense concentration but little energy, it followed, munching as it walked.
Quite abruptly, it stopped, even though another half apple was within distance. It bent its head low to the grass, sniffing, kicking with one front foot amongst the bare scrub. It kicked again, as though foraging, but then suddenly leapt back. This was the fastest it had yet moved, and Rosie bent forwards, offering comfort as she stared down.
It was the opening to a tiny underground tunnel.
Producing a quick pile of hay, Rosie left the donkey and did her own foraging, both peering and examining the hole in the ground. It was not the perfection of some tool made entrance, no copper pipe nor round wooden handle. It had simply been scratched into the earth, and led downwards. Rosie bent closer and the stench of evil swirled up from its depths. The donkey staggered back, bracing itself and shaking its stubby mane.
With a word of reassurance, Rosie produced a large kettle of boiling water with a cloud of steaming bubbles and poured this directly into the tiny opening. The stink shrank back, but she heard nothing and nothing climbed from the darkness. She waited. Then looked back at the donkey. “I shall take you home first,” she decided, producing a thin silken ribbon to tie loosely around the animal’s neck. Again, it followed her, eagerly munching on the regular appearance of food. It was digesting another armful of hay when they reached Kettle Lane and The Rookery.
Rosie and the donkey entered together, and a gathering crowd swept from the windows to see what monster their hostess had brought home with her this time.
With withering contempt, Montague shook his head. “Donkeys,” he said, “neither speak nor sing. A ludicrous addition to our estate. No doubt Madam Alice will throw you both out.” He turned his back and wandered again inside.
“A sweet animal,” Edna said, reaching out for a gentle pat. “But the poor creature has been starved. Nothing but bones.”
In spite of the last hour’s continuous food, the donkey had not yet grown a finger smudge of flesh. “Poor little thing,” said Peg, conjuring another carrot. “Has it a name?”
“Yes,” decided Rosie on the instant. “Donald the donkey. Is it a male? Yes, there’s those funny bits and pieces underneath. So Donald is moving in, and needs food and lots of love.” She lowered her voice. “But I have something else to tell you, even more important.”
“Tether that dear thing under a tree with a huge pile of hay and a bucket of water,” Edna told her, “and then come straight up to my rooms.”
“Maybe my rooms,” suggested Rosie, leading Donald to the nearest tree. “Then I can see how he is from my window. And we won’t be bothered by Twizzle.”
“Humph, nothing wrong with Twizzle,” said Edna, but she and Peg headed directly for Rosie’s large apartment overlooking the garden.
Donald gazed down at the enormous heap of hay at his feet, moved his twitching nostrils to the water bucket, drank deeply and went back to the hay. Rosie scratched behind his ears and stroked his nose. “Sweet little thing you are,” she told Donald. “I doubt you’re much more than a baby. So perhaps you’ve been mistreated and starved since birth. Well, my dear, you will soon be disgustingly fat, lazy and gloriously adored.”
His eyes were no longer moist, but the desperate hope had turned to loving belief. Rosie hugged his neck, whispered affection and flew over to her own front door.
“I discovered not just a starving donkey,” she told her two waiting friends. “I also found a very tiny underground tunnel with a vile stench. I know exactly where my Troilus mother has dug her way into the village. But there has to be more than that. She can’t smell that bad all on her own. It’s the red cup.”
“But,” Edna frowned, “you say it’s a tiny tunnel. Small enough to be made by a troilus bug. Surely the cup can’t be that small?”
“Magg’s sis-in-law has been drinking from the cup. That farm is where the tunnel comes out, right on the edge of their path. I have no idea how one fits the other, but they both came to the same house and the same family – not forgetting that Godwin was murdered there as well.”
“I can’t imagine the connection,” said Peg. “Now then, let’s do it your way. Number one, a man is murdered. Number two, the cup of shadows turns up nearby. Number three, Alice has dug her way from here to that same farm. Then number four—”
“Number six hundred and forty-two,” objected Edna, “we can’t see the connections. That cup was in the grave with Boris, and that’s where the tunnel started. And the cup’s gone, but cannot have gone through such a small tunnel.”
“So perhaps,” Peg smiled, “the tunnel works the other way around. You found the entrance in that farm where poor Donald was waiting for dinner. And it finishes in the grave site.”
Everyone looked at everyone else. “And what if Alice tunnelled down, found the cup, used it to be large again, snuck out and flew back to the village with the cup?”
“She can’t fly.”
“Don’t make irrelevant remarks, dear.” Edna glanced out of the window. “No doubt Donald would have seen it all.”
“Cabbage saw a good deal,” said Rosie at once. “She saw the Troilus bug burrowing down into the grave. And it didn’t come back.”
“So the natural conclusion is that Alice burrowed into the grave site, grabbed the cup with her whiskers or whatever bugs have and then dragged it all the way to the other side of Piddleton.” Edna paused. “But Alice could have been living in the grave for past weeks, and done whatever she wished as far as coming and going is involved. What’s more, she could have managed a little magic to get the cup to the farm.”
“Does it matter?” sighed Rosie. “They have the red cup on the farm. Maggs’ brother was made to drink from it, and he’s gone dopey. Clearly the wife likes to drink from it, and it’s given her power. The farm is neglected – hence Donald – but more important, the vile woman is half killing her husband, convinced the sheriff that Maggs killed Godwin and is probably planning something worse.”
“I believe that Dickon had the cup first.”
“The danger has moved from The Rookery into the village,” Peg said. “We should be pleased. But it’s too close.”
“We need plans,” said Edna.
“I poured hot water down the tunnel,” Rosie said. “But that’s not much of a plan.”
“Sit down, dear.” Peg patted Rosie’s fisted hand. “And we’ll think of wonderful plots, just as we always do.”
Fourteen
The echoing bellow startled the entire household.
“Demons?” sighed Uta.
“Shadow devils,” screamed Gorgeous.
“Crows fighting, perhaps?” said Mandrake.
“It’s just a donkey,” Maggs told him. She was lying in his arms at the time, and her remark was muffled against his shoulder.
“We don’t have any donkeys here,” objected Mandrake. “But I’d better find out in case it’s trouble. I’ll be back in just a moment.”
The tree house door was no longer locked against her, but Maggs did not feel that she should take advantage. Nor was she entirely ready yet to face a diverse collection of witches and wizards. “They’re not all
like me.” Mandrake had informed her with a smug grin.
Seeing the donkey almost at once, Mandrake flew down beside it and discovered the usual trio patting and reassuring the pathetic looking animal. “It was starving, and Rosie rescued it,” said Peg, looking up at Mandrake’s shocked expression.
“Rosie,” Mandrake said through his teeth, “is hoping for a sainthood. But the church isn’t likely to erect a statue to a witch.”
“It was starving,” Rosie objected loudly. “And we have plenty of room here. It’s not as if we have to buy food.”
“We might have to buy a stable.”
“We have one free already,” Rosie pointed out, “next door to Dipper. I don’t think he’d mind a donkey living where Kate used to live.”
“You might have to change the bed.”
“Why did it make that revolting noise?” Mandrake demanded.
“Me,” said a voice from the long grass. Everyone looked down, and the little fat snake reared its head, two blinking emerald eyes facing the sunshine. “I thought it looked quite hungry, so I went to give it a cuddle. It didn’t seem to like me.”
“It’s Whistle,” sighed Edna.
Rosie was stroking Donald’s neck. “Whistle, dear,” she said, “I know a snake is easier just being one long wriggling thing without hands and feet, but not many birds or beasts like snakes. Can’t you please try and be something else?”
“I could try, I suppose,” Whistle muttered, “but it’ll take time. It’s all very well for you lot. You’re not dead.”
“You don’t have to come back,” said Peg. “Ghostly serpents aren’t necessary.”
“So you just don’t want me around?” objected the snake, his voice sounding like an offended silk.
“No, no,” said Rosie in a hurry. “Please stay. But be a rabbit.”
“Brainless mating machines,” muttered the snake.
“Or a bird.”
“A sparrow, I suppose, that you can stand on?”
“I love your visits,” said Rosie. “I’d love to sit for ages and talk with you.” She paused, then asked, “By the way, did you turn up a few days ago as a big fat yellow snake?”
“Certainly not,” said Whistle. “I’m brown and green, and that’s that.”
“Oh dear,” remembered Rosie. “But never mind. Meet Donald the donkey. I’d like to talk to you in my own rooms, if you wouldn’t mind.” She looked up as Mandrake hovered. “I was thinking of Maggs too,” she said. “Would she like to come to supper tomorrow? With all of us, I mean? Or would she be scared?”
“A human?” gasped several voices in shocked amazement. “A human at our supper table?”
“She won’t bite.”
“Well, you’ll not see me at the same table,” said Montague.
“Nor me,” Ethelred said in disgust. “Let me know when she leaves.”
Mandrake scowled, cold-eyed, and Ethelred moved back. “Margaret may be human, but she is also an angel,” he stated loudly. “She’s the sweetest woman I’ve ever met and has been through as much misery as that donkey, and for far longer. And she may be a permanent guest at our table, if I have my way.”
Ethelred disappeared, Mandrake returned to the tree house, and the snake followed Rosie, Edna and Peg back to Rosie’s rooms.
“I wish you’d just come back as a man-shaped ghost,” said Peg. “I’ve never liked snakes.”
“Too much to maintain,” Whistle said at once. “And I consider the objections most intolerant. So anyway, tell me all about it.”
Which they did.
“As a snake,” Whistle pointed out, “I can remain unseen very easily, under tables, under stools, in pockets and up trees. And as it happens, I can burrow through tunnels underground as well. I shall take a visit to the village and see what I can overhear. Tonight, I might – just might – see what other shape I can muster.”
“Something sweet that doesn’t look dangerous.”
“Or the villages will come at you with pitchforks if they see you.”
“Since I am already dead,” Whistle pointed out, “a pitchfork is hardly likely to kill me off again. However, I shall do my best to turn into a duckling later on.”
“You could,” Rosie suggested with a wide smile, “push through that tunnel on your way to the village. It would be awfully interesting to see what you might find. Cups of all colours, no doubt. And beetles. Do ghost snakes eat Troilus bugs?”
“It is exactly what I had planned,” Whistle said, “and as long as no absurd human tries to kill me again, I shall return and tell you what chests of gold I discover down there.” And he left the women to their gossip.
It was a push at first, for the tunnel was narrow, and ghost or not, the snake was well fed and robust. He entered the darkness just outside Boris Barnacle’s re-dug grave and wriggled his way into a wider space. The smell of old bones, decay and the rot of underground history did not bother Whistle overmuch. He had expected it. But as he slid onwards, the stink turned to something less physical, and the unpleasant natural clogging of age turned to the unnatural stench of evil.
Interested, Whistle continued. Once dead, death seemed far less ominous, although, as he knew, the dead could as easily be affected by wickedness as the living.
He did not need light, and the darkness did not bother him, but after perhaps a mile, the sudden opening of space was a surprise. He shrank back against the wall of earth, mixing himself with the colours around him.
And then he saw the cup. It sat central, larger than his own silver creation. The stench was impossible to escape. Whistle refused to touch the thing, even as a serpentine ghost, and he slithered past, keeping his distance.
Once back into the narrow confines of the tunnel, he realised there were several ways out. Restricted diggings rose upwards, and Whistle followed them all, one by one.
The first opening led just outside the sheriff’s office. The second led to the entrance of the Juggler and Goat. The third led to the farm belonging to Alid and Joan. But there were more. The power of the cup had used Alice to create safe passages beneath, with plans for a greater influence, one by one, beyond the village of Little Piddleton and perhaps all the way to some great city. Salisbury, perhaps. Oxford. Or even London.
He did not follow the entire passage, nor had he any desire to wander into the vast cities of England. Unsure at first, he eventually moved back and slipped up to the entrance beside the tavern, entering the Juggler and Goat by the back doors where barrels were rolled, and Bob and Edgar retreated to their own rooms upstairs at night.
Stopping behind the barrels where he was less likely to be seen, Whistle watched the unexpected entertainment of immediate chaos.
“I arrest you in the name of somebody or other,” squealed Dickon, rushing towards a countryman of wide girth, bounced into him and knocked him over. Bob hauled him off and pushed him against the wall.
“Listen here, Master Sheriff, you don’t go arresting every poor fellow what looks at you. Go back to your cells and sleep it off.”
Dickon blazed scarlet. “How dare you,” he yelled. “I arrest you too. You open this tavern way beyond legal hours, and you serve those I’ve already arrested. That’s not proper, and you know it. What’s more, I need a cup of ale.”
“Well, you ain’t getting it,” Bob decided. “You’re more than half crazed as it is.”
Another man who had been sitting quietly in Rosie, Edna and Peg’s favourite corner, stood suddenly and rushed to Bob, punching him hard in the face while shouting, “How dare you refuse to serve a customer. I won’t use a tavern that might suddenly object to serving me without reason.”
“There was a flubby-dubbly good reason,” Bob yelled back. “This is Dickon Wald, who doesn’t even need a full moon to turn him into a raving lunatic.”
His son came to protect his father, and fists were exchanged.
“I arrest you too,” Dickon pointed at the man who had attempted to get him the ale he’d ordered. “Trouble-maker.�
�� And he turned to Edgar. “And you, nasty little boy. You’ll spend a night in the cells, and I’ll have you thrashed in the morning. Ten lashes for impudence.”
With a serpentine sigh, Whistle slithered back out and headed into the tunnel and the darkness. But stopped.
Behind him, out in the light, the church bells were ringing.
Managing a backward wriggle, Whistle reappeared into the sunshine. He stayed close for an easy escape and listened. It was not a Sunday, or the tavern could not have opened. He was not sure what subsequent church holidays might be, but according to the weather, it could not be either Easter or Christmas. Some particular holy day was likely, and he wondered what effect, if any, such a summons to pray might have on the behaviour of those under the influence of the shadow, and what might happen next. He managed to slip to the tavern’s back door and watched.
An unexpected silence slipped over the tavern as completely as a cloak, while the bells tolled, whirling from the regular beat to the chiming melody of tune, before returning to toll.
Every person staggered one by one, from the tavern except Edgar, who sat on a stool leaning against the wall and promptly fell asleep. Everyone else, including the tavern owner, were trooping towards the church as though they obeyed some silent and unavoidable instruction. Heads down, eyes almost closed, they walked as though in their sleep.
When they entered the church, however, as far as Whistle could see, each one of them woke and began to act normally once more. They chatted, stood cheerfully amongst the existing congregation and listened obediently to the priest.
Whistle returned quickly to the tunnels and slid into the dark. He travelled beneath the ground until he came to the widening earth-bound cave where the red cup stood. Here, the echo of the church bells boomed as though a purposeful threat, and the cup shivered. Made of solid stone, heavy and smooth, it trembled, and the inner lining appeared to come loose, cracking and shivering as though lined in ice.