Grisly Tales from Tumblewater

by Bruno Vincent

  After that, I went back often and sat by the grave of Elizabeth Hope Stranger. I came to the conclusion that the gravestone for my sister had been made recently and placed in an old part of the graveyard to look as though it had always been there, and that Elizabeth Hope Stranger’s grave had been moved to make room for it, probably because she had been dead long enough for there to be no relatives who would complain. Beyond that I couldn’t fathom, and the mystery obsessed me as much as the thought that I was soon to leave the orphanage, and make my own way in the world. I watched the Gammerys, looking for a clue in their behaviour, and found none.

  Eventually it was time for me to leave the old couple and the orphanage. They knew my heart was set on being a surgeon so, although they couldn’t afford university, they had found a school in the city that would train me in the basics of medicine and surgery, and give me a chance of making my own way in the profession.

  I can’t remember now what it was that put the idea of becoming a surgeon into my head, except that I had an idea that it was what my father had been, and that it sounded like a job for a gentleman, and one which only a brave man could do. Anyway, it doesn’t matter now. Most of the five pounds went on enrolling me in the course and buying the instruments I would need (a scalpel, a stethoscope, a glass syringe and a bone-saw). What was left after they had found a respectable boarding house for me and paid for my first few weeks was only a few shillings. My sixteenth birthday was fast approaching. Soon I would be out and on my way into the city. I couldn’t wait.

  In the final week before I left, I was leaning against the high railings one day when a rough-looking man walked past. I saw him looking the building up and down, and took him for a burglar or a crook of some kind, and told him to go away. Instead, he ambled over to me and asked in a friendly way: ‘Do Mr and Mrs Gammery still run this place?’

  ‘What’s it to you?’ I asked rudely.

  ‘Quite a lot.’ He smiled. ‘I grew up here.’

  I said I was sorry for being so suspicious, and chatted to him for a while through the bars until he told me his age. It was the same as my sister’s would be. I hesitated before I asked – had he known Maria Dorey?

  At once his face fell and he moved close to me. ‘How do you know that name?’ he asked.

  I stared at him. ‘She was my sister,’ I said.

  He studied me carefully and when he spoke it was very quietly: ‘We never knew what happened, only that she vanished one day. We heard that some rich man saw her and took her away in his carriage. Afterwards men came here to see Mr Gammery. They looked big and rough and frightening, and clustered all around the railings staring in. I remember that day so well; I was terrified. The leader of the men went into the house and we heard the shouting of insults and terrible threats. They left minutes later. Mr Gammery was quiet for weeks afterwards. No mention of Maria was ever made again.’

  ‘Who was the man?’ I asked desperately. ‘Do you think there is a possibility that my sister is still alive?’

  ‘I don’t know. I’m sorry,’ he said, and stood back to look at the house again. ‘You know, this place was always heaven to me after my parents died.’ He saw the look on my face and added, ‘My parents were awful people, you see.’ And he ambled away again, more sorrowful than he had come, but casting admiring glances up at the building until he passed out of sight.

  Well, the morning of my birthday finally arrived, and it just so happened that the course I was enrolled on was to start in only two days’ time. Gathering my satchel of medical instruments (my clothes had been sent ahead the previous day), I came down the stairs to leave. You can imagine how my thoughts had been consumed during that final week, how I had dreamed of finding the man who had stolen Maria, and despaired that I ever would, knowing nothing about him. I was still so distracted by these thoughts as I entered the playground that it was a few seconds before I saw what was different about it.

  All the other children were huddled on the near side, as far away as possible from half a dozen men on the other side of the railings, staring intently at us. They looked like they could dismantle the railings with their bare hands and dismantle us in a similar fashion afterwards, and that they might quite enjoy it.

  The man in charge kicked open the gate, walked to the front door and knocked hard upon it. Before anyone could have answered, he knocked again, so loud that in the house it must have sounded like gunfire.

  Mr Gammery answered the door and the man charged past him and slammed it shut. At once we could hear the man’s shouting and Mr Gammery’s feeble replies. The man’s voice rose and looking at the others I saw the fear that I felt on their faces too, the realization that Mr Gammery was just a weak old man who couldn’t protect us. I felt sorry for the children who were staying, and more glad than ever that I was going away.

  Within a few minutes the door crashed open again and the man strode back out. He called to the other men and in a matter of seconds their horses were mounted, ridden away at a gallop and they were gone.

  The Gammerys did not come out of the house. The children retreated to their favourite playing spots and hideaways, wondering what to make of it all.

  My carriage soon came and I handed my satchel up to the driver who would take me as far as the nearest town where I would change for another all the way to the city. I wrote a note to the Gammerys expressing my thanks for all they had done for me, and promising to write to them and visit when I could. I had wanted to hand it to them, but instead I slipped it under the door, got into the carriage and told the driver to go. My heart was full of sadness and excitement and fear.

  My thoughts ran at a similar speed to the road passing by the window. As I left the local landmarks behind, I wondered about what I had seen that morning, how it was just like the stranger’s story I’d heard the week before. The men, I was sure, must have something to do with my sister’s captor – I could only guess at why they had appeared now. The scenario I came up with was that perhaps the stranger had made what he thought were innocent remarks about me to someone. The man who had taken my sister was obviously powerful and important, and the stranger’s remarks had found their way to him through some spy or informant. His anger, or suspicion, or interest aroused, he had dispatched men to threaten Mr Gammery back into silence about Maria’s disappearance – a silence he had never broken.

  The countryside passed by rhythmically, beautiful in the midday heat, the rocking of the carriage lulling me into a doze. I realized I had been sitting forward in tense thought all this while and leaned back in the seat, giving up on speculation.

  At that moment, the wall of the graveyard flashed in front of the window, and beyond it the countless graves. An awful thought sprang to mind as I saw the holly bush pass, and I saw something near the grave that confirmed my suspicion. I called urgently to the driver to stop. Reluctantly, he pulled the horses to a halt and watched me walk towards the church gates with a look of exasperated disbelief.

  I didn’t go a single step towards Maria’s gravestone. Why bother? I ran, instead, towards the far corner, until I saw the holly bush ahead of me and the stretch of open grass. I hadn’t been mistaken: there it was. A spade, thrown aside with the sort of haste that the men had shown in kicking their horses into a gallop. As I reached the gravestone of Elizabeth Hope Stranger, I saw what I most feared.

  The ground in front of it had been dug away to a depth of two feet or more. What had been inside it was not a person’s remains, but something much smaller, the size of a chess-set box or a parcel of books. And it was gone. I knelt there, shadowed from the hot sun by the prickly leaves, and saw how stupid I’d been.

  Sworn to silence, the Gammerys had started the rumours about my sister on purpose so I would find out about her, and then guided me to this spot by showing me a grave for Maria so obviously fake that I would be sure to look elsewhere, and eventually find the stone that had been removed to make way for it, half-hidden in the holly bush. And there I was supposed to dig and find . . . Wha
t? They had indeed never broken the silence they had been sworn to. I had followed all of their clues, had solved the riddle and then not bothered to dig up the treasure! Whatever it was I was meant to discover, it was gone; the identity of her captor was safe. I walked slowly back to the driver, and ignored his remarks about how late we were. Nothing really mattered to me now, and although he whipped the horses into a frenzy and drove at breakneck speed for me to catch my next coach (which I did, by seconds) I was neither happy, nor sad, but empty.

  Now I was alone on the coach among strangers, heading out into the world with no more knowledge of my sister’s whereabouts than you who listen to me now. I watched the countryside become greyed by clouds and spattered with rain as we approached the city, and looked up at the first clouds of the thunderstorm that’s above us now, thinking I would never have a chance of finding my sister.

  When I reached this point, I told the listeners what had happened to me since arriving in Tumblewater, how I had seen the girl who I felt the mysterious connection to, met the witch and stolen the silver box with her help.

  ‘I couldn’t be sure the girl I had seen, and who had been kidnapped by Prye, was my sister until I opened this box on my knees. They are letters, loving letters from my sister to me. Each one was sent to arrive on my birthday. I had never seen any of them until a moment before I began this tale.’

  And inwardly, as I said this, I realized why Prye’s men had known about me so soon. They’d read the letters they’d stolen from the grave and knew I existed – and knew my age too – so they’d been on the lookout. I saw how lucky I’d been to be turned away from my ‘respectable’ lodgings (where Prye’s men would have found me in a minute) and forced into the shady back-streets.

  Reaching the conclusion of my story, I looked up. A peace had descended while I spoke, which I had put down to the audience paying rapt attention to everything I said. But I saw now that two things had happened: the furious rain had calmed while I was talking; the storm had passed. And I had spoken so quietly that I had sent everyone to sleep.

  Even Uncle had joined them, giving in to his tiredness after so many countless hours on the streets and in the passages, most of them in constant danger looking after me. He lay sound asleep at the table, his pipe still in the corner of his mouth. It was the first truly peaceful moment I had known since I had got here, but although I longed to join them the discovery of the letters had left me wide awake, thinking of the risks I now faced and the chances of getting my sister back. The childhood I had enjoyed until a week ago seemed a long, long way away.

  I looked out of the window and saw the water in the street was a standing pool, sinking even as I watched it, broken by drips from the overhanging gutters. What’s more, the storm’s passing had left the sky almost light – or as near as it could get in Tumblewater – a bright blue that shone down through the spitting rain and at that moment felt as dazzling as bright sunshine.

  I walked as quietly as I could through the room and passed back into the main parlour of the Crackey Inn, where many more people were slumped over (or lying under) tables, and the only sound was rough and regular snoring. I wanted to walk the passages a while and think about what I would do next and, allowing the latch to fall behind me, I began an exploration of the tunnels and pipes and holes Uncle and I had traversed on the way here.

  Families and groups were beginning to stir from their overnight hibernation to make their way tentatively back through the passages, and I began to get a sense of the strange unknown population that lived here. The tunnels were indeed, as Uncle had said, far from deserted.

  After a few minutes, the passage led through the hallway of a deserted house and I saw a group coming from the other direction, a large family bearing a lot of furniture in their arms, telling people to get out of their way. As the group barged through, knocking against the walls and arguing between themselves, I moved to one side amongst the people who had spent the night asleep in the hallway, some of them waking and grumbling at the family with irritation. Above their talk I heard a noise: a scratching of metal in the lock of a door. Turning, I heard the voices of two men trying to get in by the front door of the house.

  That’s funny, I thought. I didn’t think people who used these passages were supposed to come in through the street doors. And then I heard the bustle of hushed panic behind me. The family with furniture split up; half of them ran forward and the other half ducked back into the hole they had come from. The snoozing vagrants scuttled on their hands and knees, suddenly awake, worming between the legs of others. All at once the hallway was totally empty. It had taken less than two seconds. The men outside would be here in an instant.

  The twisting of the key grew fiercer as the man battled impatiently with the lock and shouted angrily at it. At the last second, unsure which way to run, I made a fatal hesitation. A crowd of fearful faces peered out of the left-hand hole where a dozen bodies were crammed into a wall-space not even designed to fit a single body. A man was lifting a square plank of wood into the square gap in the wall. He waved me away angrily – ‘The other one! Go to the other one!’

  I turned to see the other hole shutting on invisible hinges. I pushed it back desperately. A voice behind it said, ‘Try the other side – no room!’ and the person behind shoved it closed.

  The key finally twisted in the lock behind me.

  ‘There’s the damned thing,’ said the angry voice beyond.

  My skin prickled as the handle turned. I had no time. My legs trembled as I threw myself up the stairs three at a time.

  The front door banged open and the men came in still talking to each other. I had stopped near the top, just out of sight, and pushed my hand into my mouth to stifle my heavy breathing. The men walked straight towards the stairs so I went up two steps at a time, as fast as I could while keeping my tread silent. I wanted to run but they would hear me, so I stayed just round the corner, a few steps ahead of them.

  We went past the first floor and up to the second. As I reached the last flight of stairs, I heard one of them say, ‘Next floor up?’

  ‘To the top,’ said another. Reaching the top and using the witch’s power I swiped the door open and passed through.

  I found myself in a very small, poor flat, completely deserted except for a great pile of objects in one corner that looked like stolen goods waiting to be reclaimed.

  There was no door out of this room, only a window. I ran to it, thinking blindly that if the spell worked on drain covers it had better work on windows as well and, finding that it did, slid over the window sill, my feet nearly missing the lead gutter beneath me. Holding tight on to the sill I ducked down just as the window swished back into place and the door swung open.

  Clambering out of sight, I leaned back on the steep roof and breathed hard, feeling the rain on my face. When I was a little calmer, I tested the gutter with my foot. It seemed sturdy enough, but I was high up now and had to tread carefully. Slowly I crouched so I could peer into the street below to see the best way down. It was empty. There was no sign of life, only wrecked and deserted barrows, decaying rubbish and broken glass. The sort of street where no one lived to clear it up. I leaned back again, and looked to my left. The roof of the next building connected to this one. If I could find my way into another deserted dwelling through a—

  Suddenly an alarm bell in my head stopped my train of thought. I had started climbing to the top of the roof, so I could inch along more safely with one leg on either side of the steep tiles, but now I looked down again into the empty street – what I could see of it. It looked like any one of a hundred streets I’d walked through, or been told about in the Grisly Tales. Still, a voice urged me to look yet again, so I did. The more I looked, the less I saw.

  I reached the top of the roof and straddled it like a horse’s back. Still unsure, I made my way along to the roof of the next building. It was a storey higher so instead of climbing I inched around the wall very gingerly, holding on to little nails and hooks a
nd holes in the brick with my fingers, and walking along a narrow ledge. When I came round to the front, I got to a window and held on to the ledge. Then I caught my breath. Yes – I was right!

  Both ends of the street below were completely enclosed by houses, the only entrance a low passageway through a thick stone wall. Opposite me was a rusted and forgotten lamp post whose glass had been smashed out with stones years ago, and which had rusted red-brown. The last time I had seen the cobbles on this road they had been shiny and clean, with not a speck of the rubbish that covered them now.

  This was the street where I had seen my sister. And yet it wasn’t.

  The street I had seen was some kind of a vision from another time – the moment of my sister’s capture more than a dozen years ago when it had been smart and well kept. Not like now, when all that filled it were the rotting remains of a forgotten market.

  Standing on the narrow ledge, I realized that I was almost above the spot where I had seen her, that she had appeared to me in the next window but one. I moved my feet cautiously, inch by inch, terrified of falling now that I was so close.

  As I came level with the first window, I could grip the outside of the sill and move a little faster. I looked in: the whole of the building’s insides were gutted. From the basement up to the roof, it had been scorched black by fire and then doused by years of rain into a sodden mess. Spikes of broken wood stood out in the space where beams had been, and water had gathered in a grey pool where the lower floors once were. My hopes fell, but still I knew I must look in through my sister’s window, and for what seemed like an hour I inched until my hand touched the next window sill, and with a few more cautious steps I could see in.