Ghosts on Board

by Fleur Hitchcock

  ‘Yes,’ says Eric. ‘I suppose you’re right.’

  Chapter 12

  I’m worried about Eric’s lack of interest. Surely he now sees that Victor’s dangerous, even without the disturbing Billy messages, and I’m still thinking about it as the boat pulls into the milky fog surrounding Mystery Smoke Island.

  ‘What’s that awful smell?’ I ask. ‘It’s like drains.’

  ‘The island,’ says Victor. Mournfully. ‘It smells hideous – mouldy.’

  ‘Oooh, are we nearly there?’ says Tilly. ‘Is it here? In this fog?’

  ‘Anyone for Mystery Smoke Island? We only dock for a moment, so could you get yourselves to the forward exit – thank you. We’ll pass again at dusk – if you’re not on the quay we’ll assume you’ve made your own way back.’ The captain’s voice is muffled by the mist, but we all shuffle to the front, Tilly jumping up and down with excitement, craning to see the island emerge from the fog. Jacob is bouncing beside her.

  All I can actually see is a broken wooden jetty and the ruined spike of a tower poking out of the cloud. All the details have disappeared in the mist.

  The boat thuds into the landing stage and as soon as we’ve stepped ashore, it turns and heads back out to sea. None of the other passengers disembark and we’re left alone on the crumbling boards.

  No one says anything as the last little square of colour disappears into the grey and the final chug of the engine fades out to sea. A wave washes gently up to the landing stage and plips back, leaving dead-calm water.

  ‘Whoooo, spooky,’ whispers Tilly, tiptoeing to the end of the jetty and standing on a patch of sooty black ivy.

  ‘Yes,’ I say. I look back to the swirling fog hanging over the sea. I can’t see anything of the boat. I can’t immediately see any way of getting off the island.

  Victor walks off the jetty, picks his way through a groaning metal gate and sinks down to sit on a gravestone. He lets his head sag onto his hands and stares gloomily at another stone, one carved with skeletons, apparently writhing in agony. ‘I can’t believe I’m back on Mystery Smoke Island,’ he says and sighs. He raises one of his hands in front of his face. It might be my imagination, but I think I can see through it.

  Beside me, Eric pulls a soggy map from his pocket and arranges it on the wooden planks of the jetty. It’s very ancient and very wet.

  Everyone stays very still, as if we’re all waiting for something to happen.

  Distantly, a low howl builds. Not like a wolf – more like wind in the trees. It rises and falls, rushing up towards us and then turning and racing away. I jump. ‘What is that?’

  ‘The Evergone Forest.’ Victor raises his head. ‘It’s in the dark heart of the island. Dismal, isn’t it?’

  ‘Does it do it all the time?’ asks Tilly. I detect a very slight lessening of enthusiasm in her voice.

  ‘Almost,’ says Flora Rose out of nowhere. I try not to leap out of my skin but I’m still not used to the way she does it. ‘Sometimes it goes quiet for nearly long enough for you to forget about it. Then it gets loud and shouty again. It’s horrible to live with.’

  ‘Really?’ says Jacob, his voice unusually high. It’s the first time he’s spoken since we saw the blackened stumps of the island emerging through the fog. In fact he’s not been remotely superhero-like. Since we left Bywater-by-Sea, not a single spark’s leapt from his fingertips. ‘Why’s it Evergone?’

  ‘No one’s ever come back from there,’ says Flora Rose. ‘Some explorers disappeared in the 1920s. We never saw them again, which was a shame. They were quite fun. They had a fire and sang songs.’

  I shiver. I can see that a fire on this island would make it much more bearable. Some light would help.

  Flora Rose is still talking. If I listen to her carefully, I can work out where she is, and then it’s just possible to see her shape because it’s the space the mist doesn’t occupy. She’s about my height and next to her is a smaller figure who appears to be clinging to her arm. It must be Billy. ‘It’s also called the Fearful Forest because of the terribly afraid faces on the trees. I think some of them were once ghosts,’ says Flora Rose. ‘It’s not wind in the trees – it’s screaming you can hear.’

  ‘Screaming?’ says Jacob, shivering. ‘I’m not sure I can stand too much of this.’ He’s standing with his back to the sea. I suppose it’s like standing with your back to the wall.

  ‘Then you’ll understand why I chose to leave,’ says Victor. ‘Anyway, chaps – Jacob, old fellow, light us a fire and tell me a spot about the meteorites, eh? Who’s got them?’ His eyes widen and a long smile creases his face. ‘And what do they do?’

  ‘Don’t, Jacob,’ starts Eric, slightly too late to stop Jacob who looks infinitely more cheerful now the topic of conversation has moved away from ghosts.

  ‘Meteorites. We get powers depending on where they land. We’ve all got different powers. Tom can … Ow! Snot Face, why’d you kick me?’ Jacob hops around clutching his leg.

  ‘Oh, this is boring! Can I see the forest?’ interrupts Tilly. ‘Can we go there? Sounds spooooky.’

  ‘I disagree. This meteorite thing sounds very interesting,’ says Victor, looking better, but still a little see-through. ‘And here the fog’s so thick you can’t even see a hundred yards. Let’s go back to that nice place you’re from, so much warmer, and you could show me your pretty space rock and we can eat more heavenly cake.’

  ‘Oh, I think he’s right,’ says Flora Rose. ‘I know I brought you here, Tilly – but now we’re back, I don’t feel at all good about this. Can’t we go over to the mainland? It was so nice. And really this place is so dark.’

  ‘Ooh,’ says Tilly. ‘Look at the seagulls! Aren’t they weird?’

  ‘We keep our meteorites in our – Geddof!’ yells Jacob at a large gull which seems to be stalking him. ‘Pockets. Go away, you foul creature.’

  Victor grabs Jacob by the elbow. There’s a sort of a tussle while Victor forces Jacob upright, and Jacob sags. Jacob’s sweatshirt gets hitched over his belly, the seagull flies off and Victor straightens up his top hat, a large grin spreading over his face. ‘How wonderful!’ says Victor.

  Wonderful that the seagull flew away? Or wonderful that Jacob keeps meteorites in his pocket? I look again. Victor definitely has something in his hand. I can see because the hand is more transparent than solid and there’s definitely something extra in his palm.

  ‘Jacob, Victor – I saw that!’ I say.

  ‘What?’ says Victor.

  ‘That! You took something out of Jacob’s pocket – it’s in your hand.’

  Victor splays his hands, opens his jacket. I can’t see anything and feel really stupid.

  ‘Tom,’ glares Jacob. ‘Guests – be polite.’

  ‘But –!’

  ‘It’s nothing,’ says Victor, turning his back on Jacob and heading towards the end of the jetty.

  I whisk my meteorite from my pocket into my backpack. I don’t know what he’s done with Jacob’s stone, but he definitely took it. Not that Victor would be able to use mine – because it only works for me.

  But I suppose he doesn’t know that.

  And I don’t know for sure that Jacob and Eric’s meteorite only works for them.

  I’m still staring at him, wondering how he did that, and how to get the meteorite off him, when Tilly grabs my backpack. ‘I’m going this way,’ she says, yanking the torch off the side. ‘Do any of you scaredy cats want to come with me?’

  ‘Don’t!’ shouts Flora Rose from alarmingly close. ‘That’s Vile Lucy’s place, Ghost Lane. She’ll … ’

  But Tilly’s already stomped off into the mist. She’s already invisible.

  Chapter 13

  All the way along the path Victor skulks at the back, muttering. I can only assume that he’s trying to make the meteorite work and even though I’m fairly sure he can’t, I’m worried that because we’re on a haunted island, and because he’s really a ghost, something might have changed. He’s ob
viously interested in Jacob’s power. He hasn’t actually seen Eric’s or my powers, and I can’t help feeling that he wants Jacob for himself, that he’s only come along to keep Jacob within his grasp …

  That he might, at any minute, get rid of the rest of us.

  How did Grandma know that Victor was a ghost? It bothers me. Just like she said that thing about them being unpredictable. It’s all making me feel sick.

  I’m feeling, maybe, 3 per cent good about this. I know I’ve got Eric but he’s not really using his mind. It’s like having half an Eric – the legs, arms and hair half but not the brain half.

  At the front of the group Flora Rose squeals.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ Eric asks her.

  ‘It’s Vile Lucy. She’s prodding me with a bodkin. STOP IT!’ Flora Rose bellows. ‘Oh, can’t we go back now?’

  ‘Who is Vile Lucy?’ asks Eric, but Flora Rose doesn’t answer and Tilly marches ahead so we all have to follow her into the grey fog.

  ‘I don’t like this,’ says Eric beside me. ‘We shouldn’t be here.’

  ‘Well, if you hadn’t been taken in by him in the first place we wouldn’t be,’ I say. ‘And now – we’ve got Tilly involved. She’s my sister – but if you want to go back … ’

  Eric shakes his head. ‘I’m sorry. I know you don’t want to be here either, but I wouldn’t abandon anyone. That would be dreadful.’

  We press ahead, long flappy things brushing against our faces in the gloom, other things crunching under our feet and all the time the terrible moaning and groaning ringing around our heads. I’m trying to think warm, comforting thoughts – pies and cakes and sweets and crazy golf and smiling holidaymakers, but it’s really hard and the terrible moaning just makes it worse.

  ‘What is that?’ says Jacob, pointing at a large, leafless tree. Its branches look more like fingers than wood. It’s sticking out of a grey porridgy swamp, but it appears to be flexing gently as if it was alive.

  ‘Nice tree,’ says Tilly, her voice laden with sarcasm.

  ‘Interesting,’ says Eric. ‘I’ve never seen a tree of the genus Handus looking so big and healthy.’

  The tree seems to move to face us. It might be a trick of the light, but there isn’t any light so I’m inclined to think it’s the tree itself. I lift my hand and form a ring between my finger and thumb, making an O around the tree itself. From this distance I could shrink it into something quite tiny and harmless.

  Click, I say in my head.

  But nothing happens. I look down at my palm – no tiny Handus tree appears and the one in the porridge swamp looks just as big and just as scary as it did.

  ‘It takes people,’ says Flora Rose, panting heavily in my ear. ‘And ghosts. Actually, it’s got Vile Lucy, right now.’ The tree squeezes its branches together and Flora Rose gasps. ‘That was nasty. Although, perhaps losing Lucy’s a good thing. Last year, it took Flat George. He wasn’t terribly bright but even so, it seemed a bit harsh. It’s a horrible place.’

  Jacob picks up a broken tree branch, leans forward over the swamp and offers it to the tree. The tree grabs it immediately, pulverising it and dropping it into the pit at its feet. ‘Woah!’ says Jacob, leaping back from the side.

  ‘OK, I’ll avoid the tree,’ says Tilly, looking at it with respect. ‘This way, I think,’ she says, stomping off down another dark path.

  ‘Tilly!’ I shout. ‘Tilly, can’t we go home?’ But she ignores me.

  I watch the tree crushing a twig and try once again to shrink it, but it doesn’t work.

  I’m staring at my empty palm when Victor brushes past – he’s bent over and definitely transparent. He appears to be floating over the path, he isn’t making footprints and there’s something in his see-through pocket. Almost certainly Jacob’s meteorite, although it might not matter at all because, so far as I can see, our powers don’t work here. This is fine in terms of Victor, but not at all good when it comes to being stuck on an island with a load of haunted things.

  Tilly bumps to a halt outside a broken, blackened tower.

  ‘Ah,’ says Victor sadly. ‘The bell tower. Once so fine, and now so … ’

  ‘Rubbish?’ asks Tilly. ‘Is that the word you were looking for? Can we go inside? It looks extra specially spooky.’

  ‘Really?’ says Eric. ‘Can’t we just pretend we’ve been in? It doesn’t look safe.’

  Jacob pulls something out of his bag and a powerful beam of light plays over the charred bricks of the tower. ‘Wow!’ he says. ‘Awesome. My Dreamcaster torch is the brightest thing on the island – it’s virtually the sun.’

  ‘Extraordinary,’ says Eric. ‘To be so burned and yet still be standing.’

  ‘It was Oswald that did it,’ says Victor, his voice dismal.

  ‘No it wasn’t,’ says Flora Rose. ‘It was Billy that got caught in the fire.’

  ‘Whatever,’ says Tilly. ‘How d’you get inside?’

  ‘Well, you’ll have to put the arm back on that statue to open the door,’ says Flora Rose. She points at a sad black marble figure, swathed in more black marble drapery. One arm points up at the sky. The other lies on the ground. Like many things on the island, it’s vaguely disconcerting.

  ‘How do you know? I thought you couldn’t touch things,’ I say.

  ‘How do we know it’s not a ghostly trap?’ asks Jacob.

  ‘Mr Chenkov, the Russian ghost, could do it for a while, until he blew away on the wind,’ says Flora Rose. ‘But if you don’t want to find out, I don’t care. Ugh! Spiders. I hate spiders. You could probably burn your way through the door,’ she says to Jacob.

  ‘How come there aren’t any other ghosts here?’ asks Tilly, picking up the arm and locking it into place.

  ‘There are,’ says Flora Rose. ‘In fact right now, little Larry, the hurricane boy, is standing next to you looking at your feet.’

  Tilly side steps and we all stare at her cherry pink trainers. ‘Did he come to a horrible end?’ she asks.

  ‘Very nasty,’ says Flora Rose. ‘You don’t want to know. You’ll need to push the door to make it open.’

  Tilly puts one finger against the door, gives it a shove and it swings open, revealing absolute darkness. It’s so black inside it feels as if the blackness is leaking out to where we’re standing.

  ‘Do you really want to go in there?’ sniffs Eric.

  ‘Ladies first,’ says Jacob, shining the Dreamcaster into the void. It lights up a rickety wooden bridge, stretching over a pond.

  ‘No, thanks,’ says Tilly.

  ‘I’ll just go back to the jetty – wait for you there,’ says Victor.

  ‘Oh, no you don’t!’ Tilly grabs Victor’s elbow. It stretches but then he comes to rest next to her. ‘You’re coming in with us.’

  ‘Really?’ says Victor, weakly.

  ‘The water’s called the Lilac Lake,’ says Flora Rose. ‘And on the other side is an island with a rose bush. The rose always blooms but the flowers are dark purple. There’s a legend that the flowers bring eternal happiness. They’re rather pretty actually.’

  We cluster around the doorway, peering into the gloom.

  ‘Who’s going to pick me a rose then?’ asks Tilly.

  ‘I don’t fancy it,’ says Jacob.

  ‘Count me out,’ says Victor. ‘I’ll wait here. Tell you what – shall I look after your bags?’

  ‘No thanks,’ says Tilly. ‘I don’t trust you. Tom, pick me a rose. Go to the island and come back with a rose – a good one, not a mangy, I’ve-finished-flowering sort of a one. I’d like some eternal happiness please.’

  ‘What? Why should I?’ I say. ‘If you want a rose you can go and pick it yourself.’

  ‘If you don’t pick one for me, I’ll tell Mum AND Grandma that you were unkind.’

  If I could see Tilly’s face right now, I know she’d be running a mix of smug face and stuck-out lower lip.

  ‘I’m here, Tilly, to protect you and get you out of trouble,’ I say. ‘I am not you
r servant.’

  ‘Exactly,’ she replies. ‘So if you don’t cross the bridge, I will, and then I’ll be in trouble hanging on a broken bridge over the twin-tailed waggle fish or the man-eating piranhas, and you’ll have to save me and there’ll be two of us in trouble.’ I can hear the smug smile in Tilly’s voice. ‘If you go on your own then I’m here to shout and scream and encourage you back. Or ring for an ambulance.’

  I’m trying to see the world the way Tilly sees it, with her at the centre and me hanging on to some distant whim of hers, when Jacob leaps onto the first plank of the bridge. ‘If you won’t go, I will,’ he says, striding onto the boards.

  For a moment it looks as if the bridge will hold his weight, but as he takes his third stride, it lets out a yell, the plank snaps and drops him into the dark water below.

  ‘Oh dear,’ says Flora Rose. ‘That is unfortunate.’

  Chapter 14

  ‘AAAAAAArrghghghghgh!’ screams Jacob, from the darkness. Splashes accompany his shouts and the angry shouts of the bridge, before coming to a gurgling halt.

  A purple beam of light cuts through the water, drifting slowly down and down.

  ‘He was still holding his torch,’ says Flora Rose sadly.

  Something ripples the beam and I’m sure I see a stream of bubbles rise from beneath the surface.

  ‘Billy!’ shouts Flora Rose. ‘Wait!’

  And another ripple shakes the weakening torch beam.

  ‘Oh Lor, she’s dived in to save him,’ says Victor. ‘How horribly heroic.’

  We stare into the cavern, waiting for anyone or anything to resurface. It’s like staring into the heart of a gigantic blackcurrant jelly baby. One that swallows things.

  ‘Tom, save him. Save him, now,’ instructs Tilly, sounding anxious.

  ‘Can he swim?’ asks Eric eventually.

  ‘I think so,’ I reply, searching my bag for anything that might help. ‘Perhaps he’s caught on something.’ My hands close around a length of elderly rope that was being chucked out by Field Craft. It’s rough and not terribly strong but it might help. I knot one end and throw it into the Lilac Lake. It falls in the light from the torch beam and slowly sinks below the surface.