Whimsy and Woe

by Rebecca McRitchie

  ‘Woe?’ she called out. ‘Markus?’

  Then someone emerged at the other end of the pool gasping. It was Markus. But where was Woe? Whimsy looked around wildly for her brother. She dived under the water but she couldn’t see much. The swamp that diluted the clean water of the pool stung her eyes when she opened them. Coming up for air, she saw that Markus was doing the same. Then with a groan her brother finally emerged near the waterfall. Markus and Whimsy swam over to him and grabbing one arm each, they helped him out of the pool.

  ‘We should stay here for the night,’ said Markus after they laid Woe down. Whimsy sat near her brother. His eyes were closed. She felt his forehead. It was hot again. She cursed the Astors once more.

  Markus looked into the dark woodlands around them. Whimsy knew what he was thinking. It was night-time, they were in an unknown forest, they had no food, shelter or means to make a fire. The only light they had was from the moon.

  ‘I’m going to have a look around,’ said Markus.

  ‘What?’ replied Whimsy. Was he mad?

  He got up and walked into the woods.

  Whimsy wondered if their parents had to camp out like this. Did they have shelter? A fire? Clean clothes? Enough food? Then she remembered the travelling troupe poster. Pulling it from Woe’s pocket, she felt tears prick her eyes as it fell to pieces in her hands. She thought that they had come to the end of their journey at Cleeth Bay. But this seemed more like the time to give up. Particularly if Woe didn’t get better. There was a rustling in the leaves ahead of them. She stood up ready for what was to appear. But it was just Markus. He held a long stick in one hand and something else in the other. He held out the something else to her.

  ‘I found it,’ he whispered. ‘Even in the dark.’

  Whimsy took what he held and looked at it. It was a round spiky leaf.

  ‘It’s a Lottle leaf. When my grandfather worked on Bungle in the Jungle he got a bad case of food poisoning after eating an eggless quiche. This is what cured it.’

  Whimsy looked at the small leaf suspiciously. ‘Are you sure?’ she asked. She didn’t want to give Woe something that could make him worse. Why hadn’t she ever heard of a Lottle leaf?

  Markus nodded confidently. Then he looked worriedly behind him, back at the woodlands. Had he found something else? she wondered. She inspected the Lottle leaf. What other choice did she have? She handed it to her brother. Woe took it slowly then put it in his mouth, chewed and swallowed. It was a few minutes before he went to sleep. Whimsy was only relieved when a soft snore filled the air. Both Whimsy and Markus lay down next to Woe and tried to sleep too. But it was harder for them to fall asleep. Whimsy, holding her brother’s hand, willed desperately for the Lottle leaf to work. And Markus, holding onto his stick, willed desperately for the four-legged shadows that he saw in the woods not to find them.

  53

  In which a Lottle leaf does a lot

  Woe was trapped inside the Astor’s sludge factory. He ran from one end of the large white building to the other. He tried every door but they were all locked. He turned to the workers around him, hoping they would help. But they just stood there watching him, ropes tied to their waists. Then, one by one, the workers moved towards Woe. They grabbed him and lifted him up.

  ‘Hey!’ he said, alarmed. ‘What are you doing?’

  Silently, the workers carried him to the Sludge-O-Meter and with one large push they threw him in! He held his breath as he spun around and around with the sludge. Then he was pushed with the sludge out of the bottom and onto a conveyor belt. The conveyor belt moved around the factory, going in and out of rooms. Woe tried to jump off it but it was going so fast that he could barely hold on. The conveyor belt twisted and turned until Woe entered a dark room. Then the conveyor belt stopped suddenly. Out of the darkness two people emerged. Woe looked up at them. It was Zelia and Herman Astor. They towered over him like buildings, their smiling faces glowing white in the night.

  ‘Well, look who it is,’ said Zelia.

  ‘Do you feel safe?’ asked Herman as he peered down at Woe. His booming voice echoed around the room.

  Together, Zelia and Herman cackled. Herman extended his hand towards him. Woe stood up quickly and tried to run along the conveyor belt, away from the humungous hand coming for him. But he didn’t get very far. Herman’s hand picked up Woe by his tattered tailcoat. He was lifted up to the Astors’ grinning faces as he dangled in the air between Herman’s two fingers.

  ‘When you have nothing, you are nothing,’ said Herman. The Swamp Master opened his mouth wide and let go of him. With a yell, Woe fell down and down and down towards Herman’s open mouth.

  ‘When you have nothing . . .’

  Woe woke suddenly in a sweat. He had been dreaming. He shook his head of the visions of the Astors and was relieved to find the ground firmly beneath him. The leaf Whimsy had given him had cured the pains in his stomach. He no longer felt so hot or nauseous. His mouth now felt furry, but Woe thought this a very small price to pay. He saw his sister fast asleep next to him. One hand clutched his and in the other he saw the travelling troupe poster in soggy pieces. His heart sank. He should have protected it more. It was the last clue they had to finding their parents. On the other side of him, Markus was standing and stretching his limbs.

  ‘I see the Lottle leaf worked,’ he said to Woe with a smile.

  ‘Yes, thank you,’ he replied, vaguely remembering that Markus was the one who had found the leaf. He disentangled himself from his sister and, careful not to wake her, stood up and stretched too. ‘And thank you for your help, in the swamp,’ said Woe embarrassed as he recalled his unhelpful sludge milk state.

  ‘I don’t think the Astors will be able to sell sludge milk anytime soon,’ said Markus with a chuckle.

  Woe remembered the Astors in his dream and shuddered. Then Woe thought about the conversation Whimsy and Markus had in the cabin. And he remembered something that he had pushed to the back of his mind since leaving the Idle Slug. He felt he needed to tell Markus what they had discovered in the attic.

  ‘When we were at the Idle Slug,’ he began, ‘we found your grandfather’s grand piano.’

  Markus stopped stretching and looked at Woe seriously.

  ‘It was hidden,’ Woe continued, ‘amongst all sorts of broken and old things in our aunt’s attic. It was black and had his name written on it in gold. It was a strange thing for our aunt to have. We thought maybe she knew Magnus somehow. But now, I think . . .’ he trailed off.

  Markus looked down at the ground. ‘When he disappeared, a lot of his stuff disappeared too. Awards, pictures, clothes. It’s why a lot of people believed he had retired and taken off to live in the country somewhere. But Fry said a lot of items from thespians were being sold off at the Fiendish Finds Flea Market. It could be how the Puppeteer has been able to pay for everything.’ Markus paused. Woe could see that he was thinking about whether or not to say something. And then Markus added softly, ‘Is your aunt working for the Puppeteer?’

  Woe had thought about that many times since leaving the Idle Slug. Apoline had never liked their father or their mother. In fact, she loathed them. But could she really have had them kidnapped? Could she really have helped do all of this? He answered Markus honestly. ‘I don’t know. Whimsy found a letter that matched the ones Beatrice Ballentine received,’ he said, ashamed.

  Markus nodded. ‘We should get going. We don’t have long until the Favian Festival begins,’ he said. ‘And thank you, for telling me about the piano. He loved it more than cheese.’

  Whimsy opened her eyes to see Woe’s smiling face looking down at her. Jumping up, she hugged him fiercely.

  ‘Remind me to never drink milk again,’ he said.

  ‘We should find more of those leaves,’ said Whimsy admiring the work one Lottle leaf could do. ‘They could be useful.’

  ‘We’ll need to hurry,’ said Markus. ‘Whitby City closes its gates for the festival. If we’re not inside on time, we’ll
be locked out of the city.’

  54

  In which they are not alone in the woods

  Whimsy, Woe and Markus began their walk through the woods. Stepping over fallen logs and pushing branches out of their way, they talked animatedly. Whimsy and Woe talked about their parents, Mr Solt, escaping a pirate, Jeremiah and The Beast. Markus talked about Detective Fry, his grandfather and his parents who were sailors. His parents didn’t like the theatre and instead travelled to almost every country in the world. They weren’t home often so he spent a lot of time with his grandfather. But when Magnus went missing, his parents had to stay home and look after him. He didn’t think that they liked that very much. He caught his father once pretending to steer a boat in the bathtub. They talked about the theatre. It turned out that Markus was also a fan of Bertie Potts: Spy King.

  ‘The one-armed villain has to be his long-lost father,’ said Markus.

  ‘But Bertie killed the one-armed villain,’ said Woe adamantly.

  ‘Or did he?’ replied Markus. ‘We only saw him fall into the volcano.’

  After they had crossed a small creek in the woods, Whimsy couldn’t help but ask Markus some questions of her own.

  ‘Do you want to be a thespian like Magnus or sailors like your parents?’ she asked. Whimsy thought that it would be a tough decision to make. She could imagine Markus as both. Perhaps the world’s first thespian sailor? she thought.

  Markus didn’t answer straight away.

  ‘I’d like to be more like Detective Fry, actually,’ he said. ‘Following clues, solving puzzles, bringing villains to justice. My grandfather and parents would disapprove, but I think I’m kind of good at it,’ he said honestly.

  ‘Do you think Fry will be able to help us?’ asked Woe as he ducked beneath a low-lying branch.

  ‘Yes,’ said Markus confidently.

  Whimsy and Woe remembered what Solt had said about disguise being an actor’s best friend. They had seen what Solt could do and how powerful he was as both a policeman and a government official. How many more friends like him could Vincent have? And how would they be able to escape them all?

  ‘And you’re sure Vincent will be at the Favian Festival? And Fry?’ asked Whimsy. ‘And our parents?’ She thought about what they would do if they saw their parents at the festival. Would they look the same? Would they run to them like not a day had passed?

  Markus was silent for a moment. ‘It was a hunch.’

  ‘A hunch?’ asked Woe.

  ‘Fry sort of . . . guesses a lot of things. He said the travelling troupe . . . might be performing at the Favian Festival Thespian Competition . . .’ Markus admitted. ‘But getting information out of Fry is . . . difficult. I tried to find out more but that’s when the Astors . . .’ he trailed off.

  Guessed? Might? Whimsy and Woe weren’t sure what to say. After losing everything to the Astors, Fry’s hunch was all they had left.

  Whimsy and Woe continued further into the woods with Markus, their thoughts on their parents. Whimsy noticed that the further they walked, the darker it became. Looking up, she saw that the leafy canopies above them blocked out almost all of the sun. She quickened her pace slightly.

  Suddenly there was a scuffling noise in the distance and the three of them stopped. Markus gripped the stick he had been carrying a little tighter. Whimsy saw that he now looked worried.

  Woe motioned questioningly towards the stick.

  ‘We aren’t the only ones in these woods,’ replied Markus grimly.

  55

  In which the woods are a big bad place

  ‘Wolves!’ Whimsy yelled. Then, thinking they might hear her, she quickly lowered her voice. ‘We could have been eaten!’

  They walked through the woodlands, stepping over overgrown shrubs and weaving around tall trees. It wasn’t long until Whimsy and Woe carried sticks to match Markus’s. He led the way through thickets and the Mordaunts followed behind him. Whimsy was still rattled that they had been blindly walking through a forest filled with wolves.

  ‘You wouldn’t have slept knowing that there were wolves,’ said Markus matter-of-factly, skirting past a group of stone boulders. ‘And Woe needed to rest. We all did.’

  Whimsy knew Markus was right. But wolves? She remembered learning about them at school. Afterwards she had gone home and told her parents all about how ferocious the animals were. She couldn’t sleep for weeks because her dreams were filled with snarling faces and echoing howls. Until one night after a bad dream, her father had sat her down and given her a simple solution for not being eaten by a wolf: Don’t enter a forest where there are wolves. At the time, Whimsy thought it a brilliant solution, but now she felt her stomach clench with nervousness at the memory. She placed one anxious foot in front of the other, her eyes on the lookout all around her as she tried not to think about the fact that they were doing exactly what her father had told her not to do if she wanted to avoid being eaten by a wolf.

  Woe couldn’t help but feel a small touch of excitement at the thought of seeing a wolf. He remembered the tales Constance used to tell of explorers and adventurers coming face to face with wolves.

  Soon the trees became larger and the forest floor became denser as they trudged on through the darkened woods. Then to her right, Whimsy heard the sound of a tree branch breaking. She whirled around. ‘What was that?’ she asked, peering through the trees.

  Ahead of her, Markus and Woe stopped walking. They turned around and listened.

  Whimsy stared where she had heard the sound. Did she just see a pair of yellow eyes looking at her? Wordlessly, she pointed in the direction of the noise.

  Woe moved and looked at where his sister was pointing through the trees. But he couldn’t see anything other than trees, bushes and rocks.

  ‘Are you sure?’ asked Woe.

  ‘What did you see?’ Markus asked, searching for danger.

  ‘I thought I saw yellow eyes,’ she said. Whimsy squinted hard but there was nothing there. Could it have been her imagination? Her fear of wolves playing tricks on her? She shook her head. ‘Never mind. Let’s keep moving.’ Whimsy wanted them to find the end of the woods as soon as possible. She wasn’t sure she would be able to spend another night there.

  The trio eventually found a small path that took them over hills, into gullies and across narrow streams. They had been walking for hours and they still hadn’t come across an end to the woods. Would they ever find it? Were they lost?

  Whimsy remembered what their mother had said when she played the role of a lost banker in a play called The Cost of Lost. She had said that if Whimsy or Woe ever found themselves lost, all they needed to do to become unlost was to take a deep breath, find higher ground and survey the land. Whimsy and Woe found the advice very useful once when they got lost at the grocery store. They had scaled a tower of tuna cans to see over the heads of the other shoppers and spotted their mother in the fresh food aisle.

  When they reached a large oak tree, Whimsy, Woe and Markus stopped for a rest. They sat on the forest floor in a tired heap. Each of them was thirsty and hungry and sore. And they were still in the woods. Woe hadn’t expected getting out of the dense woodlands to take this long. He thought of Bertie Potts and when he was left stranded in an unknown rainforest after falling from the top of a moving train. They needed to start thinking about food and water and shelter. At this rate they might need to stay another night in the woods.

  Then Markus voiced what Woe was thinking. ‘We should try to find water and food.’

  ‘Let’s look around,’ said Woe standing. ‘And meet back here?’

  Markus nodded.

  Whimsy wasn’t sure. Should they really be splitting up? But Markus was right. She was hungry and thirsty and who knew how long it would take them to get out of the forest? Staying another night in the woods was looking more and more like a possibility. Whimsy pushed aside the thought and watched her brother’s back disappear into the overgrown bushes in front of her as Markus disappeared down a s
mall hill.

  Whimsy looked around. There was a small path to her right which went deeper into the forest towards a gully where some trees had fallen. Perhaps there was water there? When she came to the gully she saw that it had dried up. There wasn’t a drop of water left. She turned to follow the path back to the oak tree when the bushes in front of her rustled. Fear gripped her. Whimsy took a step back and holding onto her stick tightly, she brandished it in front of her. Was it a wolf? She thought about yelling or making a noise to scare it away. Then the bushes in front of her parted and Markus stepped through. Her heart skipped a beat before it slowed back down. He showed her the handful of berries he had found, and together a relieved Whimsy and Markus made their way back to the large oak tree. They sat and waited for Woe. Minutes went past. Where was he? Surely he should be back by now? Whimsy stared into the bushes where she last saw her brother go.

  ‘Woe?’ she called into the forest.

  But only silence responded.

  Panic crept up her skin. Something was wrong. She strode into the bushes where she had seen her brother go in. She shoved aside the branches and kicked away vines.

  ‘Woe!’ Whimsy yelled this time.

  ‘Woe!’ Markus called from behind her as he followed, his voice also heavy with worry.

  Dread filled Whimsy’s stomach. Woe was nowhere in sight.