by Robin Jarvis
One final, blinding flash burst outward. Augusta and the fleeing guests were thrown off their feet. The ground quaked and buckled and tree roots splintered. Oaks and elms toppled like dominoes. There was pain and chaos and then darkness.
Sprawled on the gravel, Hankinson struggled for breath. One of the lenses in his spectacles was cracked and his head was reeling. The memory of his wife, crushed beneath the chandelier, shone grimly in his mind, but he thrust it away. There were other, more important, matters to deal with.
Rising, he gazed about him. The night was quiet now. The screams and uproar had been replaced by sobbing. He gazed on the house. It was dead and dark and would remain so for another eighty years.
Then, nearby, he heard a distracted, fitful voice, humming and singing.
“Miss Augusta!” he exclaimed, hurrying to her aid. “Are you injured?”
The woman didn’t appear to see or hear him.
“Miss Augusta!” he said again. “Allow me to assist you.”
He helped her to stand. Her head lolled to one side. “Thank you, Mr Bowlly,” she murmured. “How gallant you are… I always knew you would be…”
“Miss Fellows!” he said, shaking her gently. “Your brother. Where is the Master? Where is the Grand Duke?”
Augusta’s demented eyes spun around and she let loose an insane peal of bronchial laughter.
“Austerly is in the house!” she declared, staring at it for the last time. “He is the house! It has soaked him up like blotting paper. My brother is a great inky spot on the walls – ha ha ha ha ha!”
Hankinson stepped away from her, aghast. She had been driven completely mad. He looked about him. The other guests had picked themselves up and were shambling down the track. Their faces would forever bear the leprous mark of this night’s horror. He thought he recognised one of them.
“Miss Purbright?” he cried. “Is it you? Madam!”
The once handsome woman turned slowly to stare at him. Her auburn hair was now stark white, her face was pocked with patches of melted skin and the lids of her eyes had evaporated.
“What happened?” he spluttered in shock. “What did He say?”
Irene shook her head and shuffled past.
“The world is unripe,” her ragged lips uttered, moving on down the track. “It was too soon. Too soon.”
Mr Hankinson staggered back to his bag and clutched it. Breathing hard, he wondered what to do. Then he realised it was up to him now. Austerly Fellows had given him detailed instructions in case of any force majeure. The Master left nothing to chance.
“Jangler will do his duty,” he vowed. “And so will the future generations of Hankinsons that come after, until the world is ripened. So mote it be.”
As Miss Augusta sang ‘Goodnight Sweetheart’, the solicitor strode purposefully back to the house. The long wait of the faithful had commenced and there was much to be done.
IN THE CAMP, Jody still had one more day of cramped incarceration to endure. Maggie, Charm, Marcus, Lee and Spencer told no one what had been done to take water to her. If there was an informer in the camp, Maggie would face a savage punishment for disobeying Jangler’s strict orders. Lee apologised to her as soon as possible for thinking she might be on the old man’s side. Then he apologised to Charm for behaving like a jackass. Admitting he was in the wrong was something he wasn’t used to. Both girls forgave him, although Charm let him sweat throughout the afternoon before saying as much.
The other children, who suspected Maggie, were still convinced she was a spy and continued treating her with contempt. Nicholas drew a cruel caricature of her on the kitchen door, depicting her as an elephant eating buns, topped with the playing card symbols of the four Royal Houses of Mooncaster. It was grossly unfair and made Marcus furious, but Maggie prevented him from punching the lad’s face in. Alasdair seemed to be the main source of this outpouring of spite towards her. Lee tried to tackle him about it, but the Scot wouldn’t listen to anything he had to say and what could he say anyway? The only way to prove Maggie’s innocence would have been to tell him everything and Lee wasn’t sure he could be trusted.
And so the camp was divided, at least until Jody was released. When that happened, she would defend Maggie wholeheartedly and Alasdair would be forced to keep his nasty remarks to himself.
The intervening day was a torment for Alasdair and Christina. As far as they knew, Jody hadn’t had any water since the morning she was dragged away. What condition would she be in? Would she even be alive?
Nobody dared do or say anything to provoke the guards. The knowledge that the Punchinellos had guns, and were itching to use them, ensured total obedience during the day’s work and in the evening until lights out. The guards greatly enjoyed this craven subservience and bullied them more than ever. Yikker took immense delight in pushing Marcus harder than anyone else and twice fired bullets past the boy’s head whilst he was picking the minchet. On the long march back to the camp, Marcus sustained another black eye when Yikker ran up and struck him across the face for no reason.
Finally the morning of Jody’s release dawned. It was also the day Garrugaska’s new costume arrived. When Spencer saw it, he was sickened and the other children couldn’t believe their eyes. The Punchinello had become obsessed with the Westerns on Spencer’s media player. Not content with stealing the boy’s hat and carrying the right make of revolver, the guard was now dressed as a gunslinger. Gone was the traditional frilled yellow tunic and ruff of Mooncaster. In their place was a black shirt under a black leather waistcoat, with snakeskin boots and spurs that clinked and jingled with every step. A red bandana was tied round the thickly muscled join between head and chest and a fat cheroot was clamped between the mottled teeth. Covering the Punchinello’s chewed nose, there was now a highly polished, hooked replacement, made from planished silver. It was a distorted parody of the hired killer Lee Marvin played in Cat Ballou.
Garrugaska strutted vainly about the camp, and never was the phrase ‘pleased as Punch’ more appropriate. Whenever he met one of the young prisoners, he reached for the gun in its holster, then brayed like a donkey at the terror it inspired and chomped on the cheap cigar. Eventually he encountered Spencer and relished blowing real smoke in his face.
“Anything goes wrong,” he drawled, quoting John Wayne again. “Anything at all. Your fault, my fault, nobody’s fault… I’m gonna blow your head off.”
Spencer was too afraid to make any reply. The Punchinello mocked him and the spurs rang as he walked away. He pulled the brim of the Stetson down over those mean, red-ringed eyes and puffed on the stogie. Spencer slumped against the wall. “How much more?” he asked himself.
Presently the children assembled as usual in front of Jangler’s cabin. They bowed and curtsied to Captain Swazzle who came striding out, grasping the sub-machine gun in both hands. Armed with just his clipboard and a copy of the book, Jangler followed. The first reading of the day commenced. The children waited impatiently as he read some nonsensical passage about a rabbit made of blue glass. Alasdair could hardly bear it. When were they going to set Jody free? The boy was bursting to demand it, but that vindictive old swine was probably expecting and even wanting him to do just that. Then he would promptly extend her time locked up by another few days. That would finish her off for sure.
“And so,” Jangler addressed them, once he had surfaced from the spellbinding words of the hallowed text, “I come to a couple of items of the most exciting news. Just half an hour ago I had a telephone call from the Holy Enchanter, who was delighted to inform me that Germany is now a province of Dancing Jax. The resistance to the sacred work has been eradicated there far more quickly than anticipated – the Germans do love to read. And it looks more than likely France, Holland and Italy will follow soon.”
The children listened, stony-faced. The older ones wondered how violent that resistance had been and what price the German aberrants had paid. How many had died trying to escape the insidious power of the book? The younge
r ones could only think about getting their breakfast soup.
“And that is not all!” Jangler continued. “My Lord has announced a most stupendous, ambitious plan!”
He paused to allow them room to gasp in curious wonderment, but none of them did.
“Every broadcaster,” he continued crossly, “every channel in the country is agog and aflame with this monumental news! The Holy Enchanter, the Lord Ismus, has unveiled an incredible scheme to recreate the White Castle here – in this grey dream. It will be painstakingly replicated, stone by stone, down to the last detail, from dungeons to battlements. And the village of Mooncot is also going to be built. It is a phenomenal undertaking!
“Fifty square miles of the county of Kent have been requisitioned for this most splendid honour. They will be remodelled. The topography of the land shall be completely reshaped to mirror that of the Dawn Prince’s Kingdom. Where there are hills, they shall be flattened to make way for fields and woods. Where there are towns and roads, they shall be buried beneath the thirteen hills. Not once in the history of this miserable nowhere has any work been attempted on such a massive scale. His subjects will never have to be parted from the grand majesty of their home again, not even whilst they sleep. Blessed be to the Ismus!”
The children mumbled a half-hearted response and Jangler dismissed them tetchily. How could anyone not be thrilled to the core with this most amazing news? It took his breath away. But then, he reminded himself, they were only aberrant scum. What more was he expecting?
Consulting his clipboard, he saw the next item requiring his attention. He sniffed brusquely then took up his keys and headed for the main block. It was time to free that irksomely disobedient girl.
Alasdair hurried after him. The old man strode with aggravatingly slow steps and Alasdair guessed it was on purpose. Reaching the door of the tool cupboard, Jangler took longer than necessary to find the correct key. When he unlocked it, the girl within tumbled out. She was barely conscious. Jangler really didn’t care if she lived or died. If she was the one his master was hiding inside, he would simply crawl out and take up residence in another of the aberrants.
His hand still in a sling, Alasdair got Nicholas and Drew to carry Jody to bed. Then the Scot put a cup of water to her cracked lips and she drank it gratefully.
“Thank you, Maggie,” she uttered in a daze.
“It’s no her. It’s me, Alasdair – and Christina’s here.”
Her dry, sunken eyes fluttered open and squinted at the harsh brightness of the cabin.
“Where’s Maggie?” her croaking voice asked. “Where is she?”
The boy scowled. “She’s in the kitchen,” he said. “Prob’ly wi’ her greedy face in the trough. I wouldnae let her near ye. Ye dinnae know what’s gone on here.”
“She… she didn’t come back. Why didn’t she come back? I begged… she didn’t get shot, did she? I heard guns! Was it guns? Or was it… in my head?”
“Aye, well, never mind,” the boy said, trying to calm her down. “You just sip at this. There’ll be some soup along a wee bit later. Esther said she’ll pop round wi’ it.”
Jody was too frail to continue asking for Maggie and slumped back on the bed. Then she started murmuring a haunting song she had heard in the darkness the previous night.
“Maybe I’m wrong, dreaming of you… dreaming the lonely nights through…”
“Is she going to be OK?” Christina asked.
Alasdair promised she would be back to normal in no time. He hoped he was right about that. Christina knelt by Jody’s side and whispered softly to her until she was summoned to join the work parties.
Jody drank a little more then slept fitfully. As the day wore on and her head cleared, she wondered why Maggie had not come to see her. At lunchtime Esther appeared bearing a bowl of thin soup. The restaurant scraps were running low and more weren’t due for another two days. After three days of no food at all, soup was all Jody could manage anyway and she couldn’t even finish half of that.
“Where’s Maggie?” she asked.
Esther became tight-lipped and cracked her knuckles.
“She is OK?” Jody cried. “Those shots I heard. Were they firing at her?”
“Her?” Esther retorted with a sneer. “Why would her friends shoot at her?”
Jody didn’t understand.
“Why do you think you were locked up in the first place?” Esther said. “That fat cow told on you, that’s why!”
“No.”
“It’s true! She grassed on you to get more food for herself. I’m sure I’ve smelled chocolate on her some days. She’s in with the Jangler. She’s one of the Jax crowd and only pretending to be one of us. Everyone knows it.”
Jody shook her head in confusion. “I don’t believe it,” she said. “Maggie wouldn’t. She helped me. She saved me.”
“Alasdair saved you,” Esther corrected her. “He’s been worried sick, he has. He brought you in here, soon as you was let out, and gave you water. The only person that thickopotamus helps is herself. When everyone else is asleep, she creeps into Jangler’s hut and they have pizza and fried chicken. Honest to God. There’s a girl in my cabin who swears she’s heard them laughing and passing round the coleslaw.”
“But… but the sponges. That was real. I’m sure it was.”
“Sponges?” Esther asked. “Yes, I bet they’ve got Victoria sponges in there, and éclairs and muffins and brownies. She’s never going to lose weight like the rest of us. My clothes are getting baggy on me already and it’s only been five days since we started eating leavings.”
Jody sank back into the pillow. She needed to rest. This girl had to be mistaken. The things she was saying were crazy.
“No one talks to her no more,” she continued. “’Cept that Marcus, the black lad and the speccy one with the zits. Oh, and Charm and the stupid kids in her cabin who do whatever she tells them.”
“Charm?”
“Yes. What do you expect? She’s just as fake. Always whispering to each other, they are. I think they’re all in on it. I bet they get some of the food as well. Chicken nuggets and trifle – whatever’s in the old guy’s hut.”
“Maggie and Charm…” Jody repeated.
Esther returned to the kitchen with a smirk on her face. Maggie was sorting through the last container of peelings, salvaging as much as she could. Anchu was playing with his bullets, lining them up in gleaming rows and talking to them as though they were tiny metal warriors. Maggie had wanted to take the soup to Jody, but the guard had forbidden her and made Esther go instead.
“How is she?” Maggie asked.
Esther shrugged. “As if you care,” she answered. “Been scoffing buns like the elephant in the drawing while I’ve been gone, have you? Yeah, I bet you’ve crammed at least ten down your fat face.”
“Oh, grow up,” Maggie told her, exasperated instead of angry. She turned to Anchu and asked permission to visit Jody. The guard refused.
“Pick at garbage,” it ordered.
It was only later, when the evening soup was cooked and waiting for the work parties to return, that Maggie was allowed to go and see her friend. Taking a bowl of it with her, she hurried out.
Jody had found the strength to take a long, and much needed, shower late in the afternoon. Maggie found her huddled in bed – a towel wrapped round her shoulders. She looked deep in thought.
“Hello!” Maggie greeted, beaming. “How’re you feeling? You had us all anxious this week. You’ve had a shocking time of it. How’s your back now? I bet it needs…”
“Is it true?” Jody interrupted sharply.
“What?”
“That you told about the phone?”
Maggie’s heart sank and she guessed how much poison Esther had spouted earlier.
“I gave you water,” she said. “Don’t you remember?”
“I remember you didn’t come back the next night like I begged you to.”
“I risked my neck that one time! I couldn’t
do it again. Those guards have guns now.”
“Not much of a risk if they’re your pals.”
“What, those monsters? You think I’m in with them?”
“Aren’t you? And I’ve been thinking, what about them apples? Where did they come from?”
“I don’t know. They was just there.”
“Fell out the sky did they? Or maybe Granny Smith brought them, or the Pippin fairy flew in. Come off it. Were they part of your deal? Did you share them out because they weren’t deep-fried or smothered in toffee?”
Maggie put the soup on the bedside cabinet and walked to the door.
“I’ll come back when you’ve rested properly, and had a chance to sort your head out. You’re looking for someone to blame and just lashing out right now. You’re talking mad.”
“Am I? Well, you can have a good laugh about it with your best new mate, Barbie, can’t you?”
“Eat your soup. That bowl’s got more bits in it than anyone else is going to get. And don’t tell no one I brought you water. If the old man finds out, we’ll both get a whipping.”
“Told you that, did he? When you two was having a cosy chat with biscuits? A hobnob with Hobnobs were it?”
“He told everyone,” Maggie said as she left.
That evening, before lights out, Alasdair fed the fire of Jody’s misplaced anger when she heard what had happened to his hand. She blamed Maggie for that too. The fact it was Maggie’s phone in the first place didn’t stop them hating her. She had obviously entrapped them with it.
“What are you going to do?” Christina asked.
“First,” Jody answered with iron determination, “I’m going to get better. Soon as I’m strong again, I’ll make sure she gets what she deserves. She won’t ever do anything else like that. She won’t be able to.”
“Maggie’s our enemy, isn’t she?”