by Robin Jarvis
Her sister ignored her. ‘When you are ready, Veronica,’ she said.
But the old woman wearing Luke's clothes was too wrapped in her reverie to hear her and Miss Ursula had to prod her to bring her out of it.
‘Remember, Aidan,’ Miss Ursula said as the cane was raised once more, ‘do not delay for anything. You must come to us at once... at once.’
Then, as suddenly as they arrived, with her instructions still hanging in the ether, the Websters and Edie disappeared, but not before Miss Celandine had spied the wine and taken a great, gurgling gulp.
Aidan looked up from his reverential bow. The four apparitions were nowhere to be seen, their unlikely figures replaced by those of his friends, but on the still evening air a distant child's voice called out, ‘I liked your music, Mister!’
‘What happened to my wine?’ Patrick asked, peering into the empty mug, not able to recall finishing it off.
‘Owen!’ Rhonda laughed. ‘What's the matter? You look as if you've seen a ghost. Aidan, why have you stopped playing? That was lovely.’
Aidan stared at her, then gave Owen a reassuring yet desperate look.
‘I've got to go,’ he announced with tremendous urgency. ‘There's something I have to... attend to.’
‘Aidan?’ Luke protested. ‘But you can't go yet, Rhon's going to make one of her famous stews.’
Owen grabbed his friend's arm. ‘Let him go,’ he said in a quavering voice. ‘Believe me, he's got more important things to do.’
***
In the Webster's apartments, Edie pulled back the curtain and was mildly shocked to find that, in the East End of London, it was still raining.
‘I liked that,’ she told Miss Ursula.
The old woman rose from the chair and smoothed out the creases in her evening gown.
‘As soon as Aidan arrives tonight,’ she instructed, ‘you are to go with him, do you understand Edith?’
‘I wish we could flit about like that every day,’ Miss Celandine lamented, wrapping her crimson velvet about her as she twirled in a circle. ‘It's so jolly being other people.’
Hunched in the armchair, Miss Veronica stroked the stem of her cane. ‘I knew that land,’ she muttered under her breath, frowning slightly. ‘I was there, long, long ago, before the mists took me.’
Nobody heard her, for Miss Ursula was explaining to Edie what she must do.
‘If you do not succeed in bringing the device here to me,’ she warned, ‘then we shall fail.’
‘Will the enemy kill the big root?’ Edie breathed.
Miss Ursula shook her head. ‘No,’ she replied with a cold ring in her voice. ‘The one whom the raven serves would never dare to injure the last remaining root of Yggdrasill. He does not wish for the ogres of the deep cold to reclaim the world any more than we. No, Edith, it is us he is bent upon destroying. He will never rest until our dominion over the destiny of mankind is ended.’
Edie grimaced. ‘He sounds real ‘orrible,’ she said.
Miss Ursula held out her hand for the child to take. ‘Come,’ she insisted, heading for the curtained doorway, ‘let us descend to the Chamber of Nirinel and there I shall tell you all you must know.’
‘URSULA!’
Everyone jerked their heads around to see Miss Veronica struggling from the chair to unbend her buckled back and raise her shrivelled arm to point the cane at her sister in grievous accusation.
Edie stared at the painted face and was stunned to behold the bitter acrimony that contorted her white, wizened features.
With a little yelp, Miss Celandine hid behind a cushion. She had not seen her sister so upset and furious since the beginning of their confinement and the spectacle dismayed her greatly.
Pressing her lips together and drawing herself up to her full, imperious height, Miss Ursula looked quizzically at Miss Veronica.
‘There's no need to shout,’ she said archly. ‘I can hear you well enough.’
Miss Veronica's half blind eyes grew large and staring, whilst her anger boiled within her ancient breast and her bright mouth twisted into a condemning snarl as, at long last, the confusion which had clouded her mind for so long, cleared.
‘I remember now!’ she stormed. ‘It was your fault Ursula—yours alone! Who was it told my Captain how to attain Godhead? Who else but the one who had listened to the voice in the leaves! You were always jealous of what we had together—that I knew. But I never suspected the depths to which you would stoop to steal him from me.’
‘Veronica!’ Miss Ursula commanded but her sister would not be silenced.
‘Your words!’ she snapped. ‘It was your words which pinned him to the tree as surely as the nails that were driven through his flesh. Nine nights he hung there, nine terrible nights in which I sought for him and nearly perished in the wild. Yet all the time you knew where he was and still you refused to tell. Oh yes, I found him in the end, but too late. When the sun dawned upon that tenth day he was no longer mortal!
‘You denied me all that I ever wanted. Beyond the reach of my heart you set him. You are a vile, despicable creature, Ursula—I loathe you! With every breath I curse your base, spiteful soul!’
Aghast at the ferocity of Miss Veronica's hostile attack, Edie looked up at Miss Ursula. It was plain that the old woman was horribly shaken and distressed.
Reaching out her pale hands in supplication, only to have them resentfully struck away with the end of the cane, Miss Ursula struggled to make herself heard.
‘You are wrong, Veronica!’ she cried. ‘It was the only way—he was the only one suitable. Do you honestly believe it was my decision? You forget the dire peril our people were facing, his valour bought our escape.’
‘Escape?’ Miss Veronica raged, striking the armchair so fiercely with the stick that a cloud of dust exploded into the musty air. ‘Better to have met death than go running to this wretched gaol where we've rotted ever since!’
Her sister recoiled as though another, more powerful blow from the cane had smote her and, staggering to the doorway, she hurriedly drew her hands across her eyes.
‘Come, Edith,’ she said huskily. ‘There is much you must learn.’
Glancing back at Miss Veronica who was still quaking with fury, the girl followed but the old woman hesitated before leading her from the apartment.
‘All that I have done,’ she declared, turning to face Miss Veronica, ‘was for the greater good. Vilify me if you will, but I know that my path was the only possible way.’
Miss Veronica shifted around so that she might not have to look at her any longer.
Glancing briefly at Miss Celandine who was still cowering behind a cushion, Miss Ursula departed and Edie trailed after.
‘Go,’ Miss Veronica breathed, leaning heavily upon the cane as she listened to their footsteps descend the staircase, ‘nothing you do can prevent it, Ursula. Bring the magical device to this accursed, benighted place—it won't avail you. The Captain was always tenacious. You, Celandine and I, we shan't escape him. Even now the servants he created to depose us may be racketing across the sky. This time the Gallows God will be victorious.’
Chapter 9 - Spectres and Aliens
Neil Chapman strolled home from his first day at his new school, hands in pockets, tie askew with his bag slung over one shoulder. At his side, Paul Roberts, the boy he had sat next to at assembly, enthused about his obsession, science fiction, and Neil listened politely.
‘Course, some people think they've only been visiting this planet for the past thirty years or so, but I reckon they've been here for ages. Take that bloke this morning.’
‘Who?’
‘The trendy vicar!’
‘You don't think he's an alien, do you?’
‘Don't be soft! Mind you, the way he was prancin’ about you'd think he'd come from another planet.’
Neil sighed sadly, ‘I felt sorry for him.’
‘Gormless Galloway's got a real ready recruit in you then hasn't he?’ he scoffed. ‘Wise up,
Chapman, there's no such thing as an Almighty anything and that Jesus twaddle is the biggest rip-off going. Don't tell me you really believe in that drivel?’
The boys ceased walking, for they had come to the cheerless block of flats where Paul lived and Neil could see in the near distance the spires of The Wyrd Museum spiking up into the darkening horizon.
Half closing his eyes, Neil remembered that same view as he had seen it fifty years ago during the war and, with a shiver, he recalled the trumpeting voice of Belial blaring in pursuit.
‘I don't know what I believe any more,’ he finally muttered. ‘I never used to think anything of that kind of stuff, but now I dunno. I mean, you can't believe in one thing and not in the other can you? There are all sorts of forces at work in this world, Paul, and I know for certain that the devil exists—or one of them at least. I've seen it rampage down this very street.’
Paul goggled at him, then honked with laughter. ‘You're a scream, Chapman!’ he guffawed. ‘I love it! Hey, I gotta go. See you tomorrow, okay?’
‘Sure,’ Neil nodded as the boy headed towards the flats. ‘I certainly won't be going anywhere, not any more. My bit's done now and I'm stuck here for good. The adventure's well and truly over.’
Kicking an empty can along the street, he pressed on down a narrow cobbled way that ran between a series of derelict warehouses and an empty industrial estate. When he entered the cramped lane that led to the museum, he gazed up at the blank Victorian terrace which led up to its rearing bulk and stared at their dark, almost menacing facades.
Some of the houses were undoubtedly empty and their windows and doors were covered in boards. But others were still inhabited and he wondered who would want to live in such a desolate spot, with only a high blank wall on the opposite side of the road to stare at and the peculiar Wyrd Museum at the far end.
Squinting at the grim dwellings, Neil imagined their owners might be strange goblin creatures, who shunned the light, only creeping out in the darkness to dance around the museum and, with high squeaking voices, praise the three sisters who resided there.
‘Four now—there's Edie, too,’ he corrected himself, raising his eyes to study the magnificently bizarre building ahead.
With the failing light behind it, the squat shape of the museum seemed even more like a gigantic, crouching animal than ever before and although he disliked the Websters, Neil found he was actually glad that his father had come to work there.
‘Not pretty, is it?’ said a voice unexpectedly.
Neil started and looked around. Hidden by the blanketing shadows which converged at the junction of the terrace and Well Lane, lurked the dim figure of a man and although he could not see him properly, Neil could tell that he was staring straight at him.
'Funny old pile, isn't it?’ the stranger said, stepping from the gloom and the first glimpse Neil saw of him was of two blank, leaden discs as the evening sky reflected off a pair of spectacles.
The boy instinctively shrank away when the man approached.
He was an old, grizzle-haired character with a craggy, lined face who wore a cream coloured mackintosh. He looked like any other pensioner on his way to the social club, but there was something about this one that Neil thought he recognised.
‘Surprised to see anyone hereabouts,’ the man said, turning on an ingratiating grin. ‘Funny, quiet district this. Not surprising really with that monster sat there, like a slumbering dragon.’
Neil peered at the stranger, wondering why he appeared so familiar.
‘The museum?’ he muttered. ‘It's all right. You get used to it.’
The man's high forehead creased and the grin vanished as swiftly as it had appeared. ‘You know it's a museum?’ he stated in wonder. ‘Well done, boy, well done. Not many know it's even here at all, much less what it is. Well, well, well.’
‘I'd be pretty stupid if I didn't,’ Neil replied, not liking the stranger one little bit. ‘I live there.’
The craggy face changed abruptly and the old man appeared shocked and stunned.
‘You... You live in there?’ he stammered. ‘Get away, lad.’
Neil wanted to do just that, but he had provoked the man's curiosity and it was apparent that he wouldn't budge until he had learned what he wanted.
‘My dad's the new caretaker,’ Neil said bluntly.
At this the stranger became excited. ‘Tell me,’ he said, casting an eye at the museum's square Georgian windows. ‘What about the sisters who live there—have you ever seen them?’
‘Of course I have,’ Neil answered, but he wondered who this person was and why he was so interested in the building.
The man saw the boy's puzzlement and drew a small business card from the inside pocket of his mackintosh.
‘Here... the name's Pickering—Austen Pickering. Have you ever noticed anything...’ he paused to find the appropriate word, '...peculiar about that place? Odd noises, unnaturally cold areas? Have items disappeared only to emerge somewhere different a few days later?’
Neil smirked unconsciously, thinking how mundane those occurrences would be compared to what really happened within those forbidding walls.
‘Have I noticed anything peculiar?’ the boy murmured, more amused than anything else.
‘It's a very ancient site,’ Mr Pickering interjected. ‘Ancient and watchful. I've been studying it for quite a time now. I've seen it in most of its moods, from brooding to antagonistic, self-pitying to jealous. Old structures are like that lad, they absorb the atmosphere of the times in which they stand and, if they're particularly archaic, that's when they can prove most tricky—dangerous too. Some places grow to be just plain bad, from chimney pot to cellar.’
‘Studying it?’ Neil whispered as the realisation struck him. ‘Now I know where I've seen you before. When we first moved here, when those people brought the flowers—you were standing outside the yard.’
‘Ah!’ the man cried. ‘Then you witnessed the procession did you? Worth a couple of chapters on its own that will be. Amazing wasn't it—very nearly medieval in its structure and performance.’
‘Chapters?’ the boy repeated. ‘Listen, what is all this?’
Mr Pickering cleared his throat and pushed his spectacles further up his bulbous nose, the thick lenses shielding his eyes so that Neil could no longer see them.
Then, in a clear, proud voice he said, ‘I'm a ghost hunter.’
There was an embarrassing silence in which Neil wanted to laugh but the man was deadly serious.
‘I'm not joking, lad,’ he barked bluffly. ‘That building is, I believe, one of the most haunted locations in this country.’
Neil looked away and all trace of amusement left him. ‘You might be right,’ he said softly.
‘No doubt about it, lad, no doubt at all. I've done my research and I'm always very thorough. It's been all sorts you know, between the wars it was an insane asylum, before that an orphanage, then a workhouse... all good meat for a ghost hunter to get his teeth into. I should dearly like to investigate it more fully, execute some scientific tests, conduct a few controlled experiments—collect data.’
‘So you can write a... book, was it?’
Mr Pickering tutted and pulled a disgusted face. ‘A paper to the Psychical Society, that's all I'd write. No sensationalism, only more facts to add to the already overwhelming body of evidence.’
‘Then why don't you?’
‘I've tried. I've written countless letters to the Webster family but nothing, not even a courteous refusal.’
Neil rolled his eyes, acknowledging the stubbornness of the Websters. ‘Then it looks as if your paper's going to go unwritten,’ he said.
‘Hang the paper!’ the man snapped. ‘That's the least important aspect of my investigations. Don't you realise? There are hundreds of tormented souls locked up in that museum. My one ambition is to set them free and help them attain peace. Heaven knows they deserve it after all this time, trapped in there!’
The impassioned sp
eech was more than Neil could bear, this so-called ghost hunter was too intense and the boy decided it was time to leave.
‘Well, I really ought to get back,’ he said, edging past him and wishing he was already within the small caretaker's quarters. ‘I've got a lot of er... homework to do.’
Mr Pickering made no attempt to follow him, but his words had had more of an effect upon Neil than the boy had expected. As he made his way around the back of the building to let himself into the rear door, he could not help but think that it was all true. The Wyrd Museum did guard a wealth of dark secrets.
Wavering before he turned the key in the door Neil hesitated as, from over the high walls, the ghost hunter's chill voice came echoing.
‘Beware that place, lad. Be careful of the lonely, unquiet spirits which tread upon its boards and roam under cover of night. Don't approach them—not all are gentle with good intent. That site is like a great psychic sponge—it sucks up souls and covets them jealously. If you can't protect yourself you'll never escape it and you'll be doomed with all the rest!’
Chapter 10 - Valediction
Night crept over The Wyrd Museum.
Whilst Neil slept fitfully in the bed he shared with his young brother, far below in the Chamber of Nirinel, Miss Ursula Webster stared up at the withered root and waited.
Up on the third floor, in the sisters’ cramped apartment, Miss Celandine sat before a tarnished mirror, a lighted candle in her hand as she gazed morosely at her reflection—her meandering thoughts recalling happier times.
Nearby, the armchair closest to the window was empty and, upon a silver tray, another heaped plate of jam and pancakes, brought to placate Miss Veronica, remained untouched.
Downstairs, within the labyrinthine galleries illuminated only by the slanting moonlight, a bowed, crippled shape limped its way through the building. Like a phantom of some ancient pagan priestess driven out of her sacred grove, the hunched figure moved through the endless rooms—the grubby material of her flimsy white gown shifting around her shrivelled form as the different draughts billowed about her.