The Music of Zombies

by Vivian French

  Now Marcus was looking out the window of the coach, although it was difficult to make out anything more than looming shapes in the darkness. He had little hope of finding Gubble. The troll liked to travel in a direct line, and walls and hedges were no barrier. He simply walked through them. Marcus sighed and wondered for the fiftieth time if Gracie was home by now, and if she was, what she was doing. Maybe she’s really fed up with me, he thought. But it just doesn’t feel right that she went skipping off and didn’t leave a message. She’s not like that. Something’s wrong somewhere, I know it is . . . but what? He let out a long, dissatisfied whistle. Oh, well. I’ll sort things out with Father tonight, and then I’ll go over to the House of the Ancient Crones tomorrow. I’ve got to collect Glee, so it won’t look odd. And then I can have a chat with Gracie.

  It was all too much. Marcus leaned back against the cushions and drifted into an unsatisfactory sleep filled with the echoes of shouting soldiers and slamming doors. Somewhere in his dreams was Gracie, but was she looking for him or running away?

  It was a long night.

  The last chimes of midnight found Prince Albion sitting up in bed studying his List of Events for Cockenzie Rood Day, his uniform arranged on a chair close beside him.

  “Should I really have the talent competition?” he pondered. “The parade’s the thing. Do I really want a whole lot of peasants singing songs about turnips?” He sucked the end of his gold pen. “After all, I’m bound to win it.” A feeling of enormous generosity flooded over him. “And as I’m bound to win it, it’s a bit unfair to everyone else to let them have a go. Goodness me! I never knew I was so thoughtful!” A smug smile spread over the prince’s face. “So there we are. Much better if I cancel it.” He drew a thick line through Tallent Show. “And what about the choral presentation? I can’t conduct in my uniform.” He stretched out a hand and lovingly stroked the glittering golden braid on his jacket. “No. We don’t need that either. In fact”— the prince gave a small bounce of excitement —“why don’t we just have the parade and make it twice as long?” Theatricale Finale and Coral Presintation were struck off with a flourish. “That’s the ticket! We’ll march around and around, and then I’ll inspect the troops, and they can salute me and . . . and then they can fire the cannon in my honor, and I’ll bow and everyone will cheer for absolutely AGES! Oh, super-SUPER-duper!” Albion clapped his hands in ecstasy at the thought, and the gold pen rolled off the bed and fell on the floor. The prince took no notice. He threw himself back on his pillows and closed his eyes, his work done. One last thought struck him as he was about to drift into peaceful sleep. “I’ll meet that spy fellow, though,” he said drowsily. “I’ll send him to see the old women. I need those cloaks . . . and a purple velvet cloak for me . . .”

  Albion would have been horrified to know that Gracie Gillypot was still within a stone’s throw of the palace. She was lying in the middle of a heap of old sacks and looking at a star through a dusty, cobwebbed window.

  “You OK, kid?” Marlon asked anxiously. “Not too cold?”

  Gracie shook her head. The rain had gradually cleared away as she reached the top of the drive and made her way to the guardhouse. Marlon had already checked it out and found it empty, but Gracie still wanted to look for herself.

  “Nobody there, kiddo,” Marlon told her. “Quiet as the grave.”

  Gracie knew he was right, but a small hope that there might be some message, or even a note, made her walk around the solid stone building. There was nothing. Next she turned to look at the palace, but there were no lights in any of the windows.

  “I don’t think I’d better wake them up,” she said. “They don’t know me. I mean, I’ve met Prince Albion a few times, but he always looks at me as if I was a beetle. I don’t think he approves of Marcus being my friend.”

  Marlon made a rude noise. “No brain. Want me to check the kitchens?”

  “I’m sure they’ll be in bed by now. Maybe there’s somewhere dry where I can spend the night, and then I’ll go back home tomorrow morning.” Gracie yawned. “Can you see anything?”

  “Be back soon.” Marlon flew higher and circled around. Minutes later he returned, looking pleased with himself. “Vegetable garden,” he reported. “Good big shed, sacks inside. And Auntie Vera. Bit of a stick-in-the-mud, but heart in the right place. Says you’re welcome!”

  Gracie looked surprised. “Auntie Vera? I didn’t know you had an aunt.”

  The bat settled on Gracie’s shoulder. “Twenty-seven at the last count. She’s the oldest. Knows everything, or thinks she does. Come on, kid. The sooner you get dry, the better.”

  Gracie, following Marlon’s instructions, found the shed easily. The key was in the door, so it was the work of a moment to unlock it, slide inside, and lock herself in. She was greeted by a soft flutter of wings and an exceptionally high-pitched voice encouraging her to make use of the heap of sacks stashed on a low shelf.

  “They use them when it’s frosty,” squeaked Auntie Vera. “But what I say is, if they keep an onion warm, they’ll do nicely for a Trueheart. Goodness, child! You’re soaked to the skin! Marlon? Out! Let the girl have some privacy.”

  Now Gracie was warm and dry at last, and her clothes hung dripping from a convenient nail. “Wake me up early,” she said sleepily. “I don’t want to be discovered by a whole lot of gardeners.”

  “No prob,” Marlon assured her. “Bright ’n’ early does it. Sleep well, kiddo.”

  On the other side of the Five Kingdoms, in Gorebreath, Marcus was staring out his bedroom window, his father’s voice still rumbling inside his head. “Disappointment . . . expected better . . . let your brother down . . . embarrassment to us all . . . bad example . . . no support to Arioso . . . spoiled the day . . .”

  Marcus opened the window and leaned out to breathe the damp night air. It had been even worse than he had expected, he reflected gloomily. Even his mother had been angry with him. Well, worse than angry. She had cried. Marcus did more deep breathing in the hope of removing the uncomfortable lump in his chest, but it seemed fixed in place.

  “Oh, RATS,” he said loudly. “So what on earth do I do now? I can’t even go and see Gracie. Father’ll combust if I’m not around for a day or two. Oh, rats, rats, and double rats! It’ll drive me mad.” He shut the window with a bang.

  The grandfather clock in the House of the Ancient Crones showed half-past two in the morning, but only Foyce was asleep. In room seventeen the looms were busy; Edna was working at the web of power, while Elsie was steadily throwing the shuttle to and fro on the second loom. Val was sitting beside her, stitching at a long red cloak. Alf was balanced on the back of Edna’s chair, twittering.

  “So all of a sudden, there we were outside the Royal Palace of Cockenzie Rood! You could have knocked me down with a feather! SUCH a surprise for Miss Gracie and Mr. Prince —”

  He was interrupted by the Ancient One. “Alf,” she said, “you’ve been talking nonstop for at least half an hour. We’re delighted to hear that our girl is safe, and we understand that she slipped onto the path by accident. As did Gubble. And you.” She gave the little bat an appraising look with her clear blue eye. “But it seems to me there’s something else on your mind. Something you haven’t told us yet.”

  Alf fluttered his wings and hopped from foot to foot. “No, no, no. Well. That is, Miss Gracie did say I should tell you EXACTLY what happened. So I did. I have.”

  “Really?”

  Alf did more hopping and fluttering, but there was no avoiding Edna’s steady gaze. “It was just that . . . I mean . . . well, I DID flutter a little bit close to Miss Gracie when she was bending down, and so it’s JUST possible that that’s why she fell onto the path. If you see what I mean. Are you very angry?”

  Edna raised her eyebrow. “Angry? No. Tell me, though. Why — EXACTLY — were you fluttering so close to Gracie?”

  The little bat blushed. A rosy glow shone through his fur, and he hung his head. “True romance,” he whispered.r />
  “Romance?” Val, needle poised, stared at Alf. “What romance?”

  Alf wriggled as hard as if the needle was stuck in his small furry stomach. “Miss Gracie. Mr. Prince. Mr. Prince was going away, see, but Miss Gracie didn’t . . . I mean, she wasn’t . . .” Totally overcome, Alf flopped onto the floor and crept away to hide his blushes under the heavy wooden loom.

  Edna bent down and gently lifted him up. “I think it’s you who’s the romantic, young Alf,” she told him. “But you must listen to me. You can’t hurry these things, however much you might wish to. Let Marcus and Gracie work things out for themselves. Now, why don’t you have a little sleep, and then you can fly back and tell her everything’s fine here, and we’ll see her when she gets back. Oh, and you can tell your Mr. Prince that we’re looking after his pony too.”

  Alf yawned an enormous yawn. “It’s ever so odd, Mrs. Crone, but I feel so much better now. And I am tired. Ever so tired . . .”

  A moment later he was fast asleep in the Ancient One’s lap.

  Marley Bagsmith tossed and turned all night long, always aware of the dark shadow in the corner. As his room began to lighten with the coming of dawn, he thumped his grubby pillow and decided to give up being a spy. “It’s much too much like hard work,” he told himself. “Princes. Parades. Competitions! Load of old rubbish.”

  There was a faint whisper from the corner. “Remember your promise, Mr. Bagsmith . . .”

  Marley sat up. “And what if I don’t?”

  The shadow chuckled. “That would be a mistake. A very bad mistake . . .” A shiver ran up and down Marley Bagsmith’s spine. The image of Fiddleduster Squint’s cold, fleshless face floated into his mind, and icy-cold fingers squeezed at his stomach.

  “Just leave me alone, why can’t you?” he wailed. “I’ll do what he said. I’ll get the prince to let that screeching fiddle player into the competition—” He stopped. The shadow was so close, he could hardly breathe.

  “Be careful, Marley Bagsmith. Be careful what you say. My master believes in his music. He has a gift, a gift unrecognized as yet . . . but once it has burst forth upon the Five Kingdoms, all will be changed by him, all will be under his spell.”

  “Mmmmph!” was all that Marley could manage, but the shadow took this as an apology. It floated back into its corner, and Marley crawled back under his blanket.

  The shadow’s master was whistling. He had already scared three night travelers up a pine tree and sent an old woman into hiding. She had wandered outside her cottage to look for her cat just as Fiddleduster Squint was passing, and he had immediately offered her an impromptu concert. She was much too deaf to understand his offer, but the wails and shrieks of the fiddle penetrated even her muffled hearing and sent her scuttling for the safety of her closet.

  “See, my dears?” Fiddleduster waved his violin bow at his cousins, who had trailed after him for an evening’s free entertainment. “See how the beauty of my music renders humans speechless with joy? Oh, I was born for glory. When I am crowned victorious at Cockenzie Rood, my life will truly begin.”

  Mucus picked a maggot out of his ear. “Begin what, Fiddly Diddly? Scaring cats?”

  Fiddleduster Squint frowned. “I will have crossed the border, and what does that mean?”

  Mucus looked at Corruption. Corruption looked at Mildew.

  “Thunk!” said Mildew.

  “Wallop!” said Corruption.

  “Thunk, wallop, and ouch from Gruntle’s club,” Mucus agreed, and all three began to snigger.

  “No, no, no.” Fiddleduster wagged a long bony finger. “When one is invited over the border, one is no longer an outcast. I will be asked to play, and when my music is heard, my power grows. Did you not see how I charmed the Bagsmith to obey my will? And where one has fallen, many will follow. Kings and queens will open their doors and beg me to come in. I will play, and they will surrender their foolish minds to me . . . and I will do as I choose.” He gave a high-pitched cackle of laughter. “It might even be that I will open the border to such as you, my dear cousins . . . to you and all others like us!”

  Corruption, Mildew, and Mucus came close. “Flesh,” they whispered eagerly. “Sweet human flesh?”

  “If the border fails,” Fiddleduster promised, “the enchantments fail. Each one of us — be we zombies, werewolves, dark witches, or other creatures of the wilderness — is waiting for that time to come . . . And when it does, there will be nothing, nothing to stop us . . .” And he played such a high-pitched celebratory tune on his fiddle that the old woman’s cat gave an agonized screech and pulled out all of its whiskers.

  The sun was rising as Gubble crashed through a hedge and made his way onto a well-worn track. His face was covered in mud, and a trail of pond weed suggested that his progress had not been straightforward. As the sun broke through the mist, he looked to the left and right, and for the first time since he had left the guardhouse, he hesitated.

  “Gubble find Gracie,” he muttered. “Ug! Gubble tired.” A wooden bench dedicated to the memory of Lodmilla and Turret Witherspoon (they loved this spot) caught his eye, and with a grunt he rolled himself underneath. At once his small piggy eyes closed, and he began to snore.

  Far, far away, beyond the Wild Enchanted Forest, in a sheltered hollow surrounded by strangely shaped rocks and hillocks, a bird was on the point of bursting into the dawn chorus.

  “Tweet!” it began. “Twee —”

  The tree it was sitting on trembled, shook, and fell over.

  “Awk!” The bird flew high in the air, then headed for the safety of a nearby rock.

  The rock gave a deep earthy chuckle.

  “WAKE . . . UP,” it croaked.

  The bird gave a terrified squawk and flew away.

  A second rock, covered in lichen, grass, and daisies, stretched itself a couple of yards higher. “NOT . . . LONG . . . NOW.”

  Marlon had, without a doubt, meant to wake Gracie early. What he had not anticipated was Auntie Vera wanting to catch up on all the family news and to tell him stories of her twenty-six sisters, their offspring, and their offspring’s offspring. It was a very weary bat who finally hung himself up on a roof beam, and the sun was streaming in through the window when he was woken by the sound of footsteps. Gracie had heard them too and was sitting up clutching a sack to her chest. “Is it the gardeners?” she whispered. “Are they coming here?”

  Marlon hovered by the window. “Weird-looking guy,” he reported. “Sneaky. Up to no good, I’d say — Hang on! What’s this?”

  Gracie reached for her dress and slid into it. It was still damp but not unbearably so. She left the apron hanging on its nail and tiptoed over to peer out through a dusty pane. “Oh!” She put a hand to her mouth. “That’s Prince Albion!”

  “And the other guy?” Marlon asked.

  “I’ve never seen him before.” Gracie shook her head.

  “Looks suspicious to me,” Marlon said. “Pin your ears back, kiddo.”

  Gracie was about to say that she didn’t think they should be listening to what was so very evidently a private conversation, but Prince Albion’s first words made her gasp and draw nearer to the window.

  “House of the Ancient Crones,” he said. “Ever heard of it, Bill?”

  “Heard of it,” Marley Bagsmith said doubtfully. “Best left alone, Your Highness, from all I’ve heard. Strange goings-on in those there parts. Ouch!”

  Albion jumped and looked wildly around. “What? What is it? Is someone about to attack me?”

  Marley swallowed nervously. The shadow had slithered under his coat, and after winding itself tightly around his shoulders, was sliding up under his ear. “Remember . . .” it hissed.

  “No, no, Your Highness,” Marley said. “It was . . . a bee. Or a wasp.” He flailed at his head. “Must have stung me. Sorry about that. Erm — about your talent contest —”

  “Talent contest?” Albion waved a dismissive hand. “Forget that. I need you to go and see those crones. They�
�re making cloaks for my procession, and they haven’t delivered yet. Not good enough, don’t you know. Also I need a cloak myself. Purple velvet. Long. You tell them, Bill. Oh, and they could slap on the Cockenzie Rood crest while they’re at it. And tell them to hurry!”

  Marley’s mind was whirling. The shadow was hissing wordlessly in his ear, and his heart was racing. “But, Your Highness! Think . . . think how disappointed your people will be if you don’t put on the contest! I mean . . . weren’t you going to perform yourself? How sad if we don’t get to see you in all your glory!”

  “Good!” hissed the shadow. “More! More!”

  “And I was at Gorebreath yesterday,” Marley went on, his imagination fired by terror. “And everyone there was saying how splendid and . . . and different Cockenzie Rood Day will be, and they were wishing Gorebreath had such a clever and amazing prince to think of such things.”

  Albion visibly swelled. “Did they? Goodness. Super-duper. Quite right, of course. Quite right.”

  “And I know of a musician who will make you famous in all the Five Kingdoms,” Marley said hurriedly. Seeing the prince’s expression, he hastily added, “Even more famous, that is, than you already are. Extraordinary, he is. He . . . he sounds like nothing you’ve ever, ever heard —”

  Albion hesitated. Surely an extraordinarily talented musician would detract from his own achievements? Or would he be given credit for finding him? The title “Prince Albion, Patron of the Arts,” floated attractively in the forefront of his mind.

  “Strike now!” hissed the shadow. “Now!”

  “He absolutely refuses to go to Gorebreath,” Marley wheedled. “He said he wanted to play for Prince Albion of Cockenzie Rood and nobody else, because nobody else was half as important.”