Pure Dead Batty

by Debi Gliori

  “Stop,” she wailed, barely able to force the words past her frozen lips. “Make it s-s-stop!”

  Apollonius affected not to hear; he tied off ropes, checked knots, stowed away maps and charts, and tended his charcoal brazier, ignoring Minty’s entreaties. Frozen to the marrow and scared witless, the nanny could only watch as they swung dizzyingly across the landscape, heading for the vast blue sea that fringed the lands below. As they drew closer, it was as if the view suddenly swam into focus; as if some internal compass behind Minty’s eyes had swung round to point its quivering needle at true north. Rising out of the atmospheric cloak of sea mist was StregaSchloss, and, if she wasn’t mistaken, there was Lochnagargoyle, unchanged save for a small island floating in its center like a pebble artfully placed in a suburban garden’s water feature. As they drew closer, the balloonist’s skill and the prevailing northerly wind brought them within sight of the island, and Minty’s breath caught in her throat. A gust of wind stripped away the mist, and she saw three figures moving on the land below. It was hard to be certain from this distance, but they looked like a man with his head in his hands, a woman of middle years, and a familiar tiny child…

  … all of whom saw her, stopped, waved their arms, and ran toward where the balloon hung above the shore.…

  The child waved cheerily, tugging at the hand of the woman at her side.

  “DAMP!” Minty yelled, her voice betraying the maelstrom of emotions churning inside her: relief that the little girl was alive; confusion as to what she was doing here in this—this hallucination; fear that she was in real danger and that this was some kind of premonition; and finally, utter helplessness. What could she do?

  “Damp,” she repeated, her voice cracking with the effort. “Please, darling. Come back home.”

  Below, the little girl smiled and turned to her companion. “That’s Toothpaste,” she explained helpfully. “She’s s’posed to be a nanny too.”

  Minty was temporarily distracted from wondering who Damp was talking to by the sight of the thin man loping along the shore, coming closer with every passing second. As the gondola lurched and bumped, caught in crosswinds which buffeted it back and forth, Minty could now see that he was making straight for the balloon, his face contorted with the effort of running and his chest visibly heaving as he tried to drag air into his lungs.

  “There’s no point in killing yourself, dear,” she heard Damp’s companion say. “You’ll only make your migraine worse, not better.”

  To Minty’s horror, an expression so black and foul flashed across the man’s face that she couldn’t stop herself uttering a sob of fright. What manner of creature was he? And what was he doing on this island? And for that matter, was any of this real? Had her fevered imagination conjured up this whole thing like a hastily erected film set; all picture-perfect on the face that showed to a camera, but behind, a series of painted canvases and rough wooden pallets? In her panic had she invented an island to place Damp safely out of harm’s way? And if so, why had she populated it with this limited cast of one grandmother figure and this—this vile and devilish thing? Damp’s next words drove a bulldozer straight through Minty’s tottering theory.

  “Tell Mama I’m coming home soon. Not worry. Tell Mama I’m bringing the best surprise. And Toothpaste—”

  Minty leaned over the side, hardly able to hear the little girl, aghast at how fast the devil-thing was gaining on the balloon, his outstretched hands nearly touching a trailing rope which had un-spooled from a coil tied to the gondola.

  “—you’re not deeming. Go home and make raspy muffins for Titus. Flora says your cherry cake looks brilliant, but Titus really likes muffins best.…”

  Minty saw the woman bend over the child to say something in her ear, and Damp smiled. “Flora says muffin respy is in the drawer under the blackbid. Ba-bye, Toothpaste … see soon.”

  As her words were swallowed up by the mist, Minty felt the entire gondola lurch to one side. To her dismay, she saw the demon had managed to grasp the dangling rope and was now swinging below them, his breath hissing up toward her in gouts of foulness, his hands clawing at the hempen rope. Then, with another sickening lurch from the gondola and a ghastly shriek from the demon, he was gone and by Minty’s side stood Apollonius, white-knuckled, his fist gripping a familiar notched dagger. Seeing her eyes widen at the sight of this weapon, he shrugged.

  “Malvolio—pffff. Such a worrywart. Too busy seeking signs and portents to see what goes on under his nose. The seasons will turn before he notices that I borrowed this.” Apollonius peered over the edge of the gondola to make sure that he really had succeeded in cutting off the demon in mid-flight. Far beneath, mist rolled and coiled, swallowing the figures, the island, and the entire loch in a churning cauldron of white. Apollonius heaped charcoal on his brazier, fanned the flames with ox-hide bellows, and made good haste to put the island behind them.

  “What …? Where are we …?” Minty began, falling silent when she became aware of what he was holding out to her. She saw a vast gilded frame and, through it, her bedroom, its familiar furnishings made utterly surreal by having materialized in the middle of the gondola under a hot-air balloon.

  “It is time,” Apollonius murmured, stepping closer until Minty could feel the warmth of the sunshine pouring through the windows of her bedroom. “Great art outlives the brief span of our human lives,” he whispered, gallantly taking Minty’s hand to help her climb through the frame. Behind her she heard cawing gulls and creaking wicker; ahead, a distant chime as, somewhere in StregaSchloss, a clock sounded the hour.

  As Minty turned back to thank him, his image was already diminished. The hero had become no more than oil on canvas, turning into a painted memorial to himself; the shrieking gulls now silenced and the wind-tossed balloon frozen in time. Of the miracle that had just occurred, nothing remained save for a newly painted dagger held in the hand of Apollonius “the Greek,” and a tiny rip in the portrait of the dagger’s original owner, Malvolio di S’Enchantedino Borgia, one-time guardian of the Chronostone. Malvolio, grandson of Strega-Nonna and the ancestor whose bright idea it had been to hide the Chronostone in the chandelier hanging in the great hall of his country house, thus turning StregaSchloss into an irresistible demon-magnet.

  Ladybird, Ladybird

  Latch walked swiftly across the pebbles, calling Damp’s name with little hope of an answer. His hunt along the shores of Lochnagargoyle had been fruitless: thick mist descended as the butler walked farther than he imagined even the most determined toddler would have dared venture. High tides had dumped drifts of seaweed on the pebbly shore, vast stranded embankments of greeny-brown bladderwrack, its fronds entangled with the seaborne trash of several continents. Latch had lost track of the numbers of blue rubber gloves he’d counted on these shores, the forests of waterlogged hands washed off fishing boats hundreds of miles out at sea. Ropes and buoys too, single oars, snapped-off rowlocks; as if someone at StregaSchloss had wished for a boat and the loch had obliged, obediently delivering it in instalments, one plank at a time. The same serendipity applied to car parts: The loch spat out one bald tire or rusty wheel with each high tide, as if in some sunken place fathoms deep lay a vast car transporter, its cargo of rusting hulks giving up its secrets one by one. Most of what arrived on these shores was worthless, an eyesore; the seemingly endless flow of rubbish proving that certain sectors of humanity were ill-qualified to be planetary custodians. Despite this, Latch paid close attention to the flotsam: He retraced his steps along the shore, head bent, eyes carefully scanning the tangled mats of seaweed in case they held any clues to Damp’s disappearance.

  For reasons he couldn’t explain, either to Miss Araminta or to himself, Latch wasn’t in the least worried about Damp. Ever since he’d caught sight of the magnetic fridge letters spelling out their message to him—to remind him, as if he needed reminding, that love would indeed triumph, would conquer all—since that moment he’d felt like a child waiting for his birthday to roll arou
nd again. He’d hardly been able to sleep the previous night, lying awake in the dark, exalted, tingling, fairly fizzing with excitement. Even the appearance of the odious Marie Bain that morning hadn’t dented his conviction that everything was going to sort itself out. The discovery that the malicious ex-cook had choked on a cake of her own making only added to Latch’s hunch that some form of supernatural justice was finally being applied. Heaven knew, the Strega-Borgias had suffered some horrendous misfortunes of late, but if he wasn’t mistaken, the scales were beginning to tip in their favor once more, their tide was beginning to turn. In his heart of hearts, Latch knew it was all going to be all right. Flora would—

  He stopped himself in time, breathing heavily and halting beside a flooded rock pool. He didn’t dare give voice to his growing suspicion that Damp had somehow found a way to be reunited with her beloved nanny, or to his hope—no, his certainty that both would return home safe. Here, on this misty shore, he was simply going through the motions, pretending to look for the child—for heaven’s sake, if he’d really suspected that the two-year-old had gone for an unsupervised stroll by the lochside, he’d have called out the coast guard, the police, the marines, the navy seals, and the air-sea rescue squad to assist him in his search. His reflection in the water of the rock pool grinned back at him, offering a brief glimpse of his secret joyous self—Flora, my Flora—before he composed himself, rearranged his features into an expression more befitting the temporary head of a ravaged household, and strode quickly in the direction of StregaSchloss.

  When Latch’s footsteps sounded on the rose-quartz drive, a window on the first floor opened and Miss Araminta’s head popped out.

  “Don’t worry about Damp,” he called up to her, noting how pale the young woman appeared, her face ghost-white against the honey-colored stone walls of StregaSchloss.

  Minty frowned and leaned farther out of the window. “I was about to say the same to you—” She halted in mid-sentence and narrowed her eyes. To Latch, it looked as if she was about to say something more, but then she flicked him a brief smile, withdrew her head, and closed the window.

  Latch’s eyebrows twitched, and he stood gazing up at the silent house, wondering to himself … Miss Araminta. It had been the right decision then, putting her in the Ancestors’ Room, despite instructions from Signora Strega-Borgia to give the nanny the anemic Lilac Room. Latch rolled his eyes. Adore his employer as he did, he had to admit that she had the psychic sensitivity of a mollusk. Anyone could see that Miss Araminta wasn’t the type. The Lilac Room was for lady guests in cashmere and pearls; ladies for whom sorcery was something you put your teacup down upon; ladies who believed that Wicca could be purchased at a local garden center. The same ladies who’d throw a hissy fit if the ancestors were feeling a tad mischievous. No, Latch thought, the Ancestors’ Room was not for the faint-hearted.

  As for Signora Strega-Borgia’s amazing lack of powers of observation—Latch had frequently had cause to bless his employer’s ignorance about what was going on right under her nose. Baci was no eagle-eyed employer, terrorizing staff and swooping down to fret and fuss if anything was out of place. She sailed dreamily through her household, adored by husband, children, and employees, serenely unaware of her surroundings, unmoved by the highs and lows of her spouse’s Latin temperament, and seemingly unperturbed by the domestic squalor afforded by living in the same house as three untidy children. Unfortunately, this lack of insight extended to her own affairs. Despite having spent many months on a course in Advanced Magic, Signora Strega-Borgia had all the magical talent of an enthusiastic schoolgirl armed with her first conjuring set.

  Returning to the present, Latch wondered just how far his employer’s lack of observational skills might extend. Was she likely to overlook the fact that Damp was missing? Latch suspected not. While Titus and Pandora were old enough to go off on their own for hours on end, Damp was far too young to be accorded similar freedoms. Wearily he crossed the drive, rose quartz crunching under his feet. Unless he came up with a cunning plan, he would shortly have to explain to Signora Strega-Borgia that her littlest daughter had vanished. With a heartfelt groan, he imagined how that would go down. No. No, no, and thrice no. It was simply too hideous to contemplate. Somehow, he had to come up with a convincing reason for Damp’s absence. Wondering just how much time he had for this Herculean task, Latch stared off into the distance, his thoughts in turmoil. He frowned. Whose car was that in the distance, slowly negotiating the rutted track between Auchenlochtermuchty and StregaSchloss? A taxi? As the vehicle drew closer, Latch waited to see who would emerge from the cab’s interior to grapple with the gate to the StregaSchloss estate. After a long pause the driver’s door opened and a figure leaped out, opened one of the rear doors and stood back to allow a passenger to struggle out of the taxi’s interior.

  A familiar figure unfolded itself from the vehicle and waited while the driver battled with the gate. A small moan escaped from Latch’s mouth. Surely not yet? She was early. Horribly early. Why oh why hadn’t she gone shopping in Glasgow as she normally did? Oh, Lord, he thought, breaking into a run, his feet slipping on the lawn and skidding across paths covered in drifts of soggy leaves. Oh, help, he thought, fleeing round the side of the house, out of sight of the taxi’s passenger, who was waving cheerily at the departing vehicle and setting off for her home with a briskness of step at odds with her gravid appearance. Oh, damn and blast it, he thought, his heel sinking into an ominously soft mound of earth which, judging by the stench, had been of recent evacuation. With no time for the niceties of shoe scraping or even removal, Latch bolted across the kitchen garden and flung himself into the house, yelling for assistance from anybody within earshot.

  Silence rolled down the passages and stairwells of StregaSchloss, and the echo of his voice was swallowed up by walls several yards thick. The butler nearly slapped his forehead in frustration. No one could hear him—or if they could hear him, they were choosing not to answer. Sprinting into the great hall, Latch seized the first object that came to hand and began to hammer the dinner gong with a golf umbrella as if his life depended on it.

  Pandora lay on Titus’s bedroom floor staring sightlessly at the ceiling, where several model airplanes dangled from threads so furred with dust they looked hand-knitted.

  “I don’t know what the photos prove.” Pandora’s voice was weary, as indeed was its owner. Taking turns at the computer, Titus and Pandora had been combing the photo CD in search of clues about where the pictures had come from. That had been hours ago, and still they were none the wiser. The drop-down menus relating to all photo data had been wiped—all their locked files had names ending in h_ex, a fact which had caused Titus to waste endless hours running virus protection software, and now, waiting for the disk to reload, Pandora was rapidly losing the will to live. She rolled over on her stomach and began morosely picking threads out of the carpet.

  “I think,” she said at length, “I—it’s like everything’s falling apart. Dad’s gone, Mum’s on Planet New Baby, you say that Damp’s missing, Latch looks like a ghost, Marie Bain’s—”

  “Okay. Stop,” Titus interrupted. “I get the picture.” He exhaled noisily and slumped back on his seat. “Things change, Pan. Nothing stays the same forever.”

  “Yeah, but …”

  “Could you quit picking holes in my carpet? You’re acting like a—like a depressed moth or something. Look, for what it’s worth, I’m pretty sure it’ll all work out in the end. We know Dad didn’t kill Mrs. McLachlan, so sooner or later he’ll be proved innocent and come home. Mum’ll rapidly exit Planet New Baby once it arrives and starts wailing all night long. Damp will … Damp will … Look, here are the photos at last.” And relieved to have something to do other than spout faintly cheering platitudes, Titus turned back to his computer, only to emit a yelp of dismay.

  “What?” Pandora rolled over and sat up.

  “I knew it. I just knew it. I should never have tried to open anything with h_ex at the en
d of a file name. This is exactly like when my laptop got that weird virus last spring. Those were h_ex files too and they completely trashed my hard drive—”

  “Let me see,” Pandora said, standing up and crossing to where her brother sat slumped, head in hands, rubbing his forehead and making small whimpering sounds. She bent over the ailing computer and was about to start spouting her own faintly comforting platitudes when they both heard Latch’s frantic summons on the dinner gong downstairs.

  Here Comes the Night

  The terrifying plunge into the waters of Lochnagargoyle had done nothing to improve Isagoth’s temper, but oddly, as he wallowed and doggy-paddled for shore, the demon had a moment or two to marvel at how the unplanned swim had cured his migraine. This was before the salt water of the sea-loch began to work on his skin, and before he attempted to break all Olympic swimming records by windmilling through the waves, for, in common with all demons, he was violently allergic to salt. He howled and shrieked at the two figures on the shore as he thrashed and boiled like a demonic waterspout.

  Out of the north came a wind full of sharp little teeth, icing the pebbles of the shore and nipping at Damp and Mrs. McLachlan as they shivered by the lochside. If the plummeting temperature was causing Mrs. McLachlan to shudder, it was the sight of what Damp held out in her hand that really made her tremble with fear. Wrapped in Mrs. McLachlan’s arms, Damp was only dimly aware of her nanny disentangling the thread from her fingers, but that was perfectly fine by Damp. After all, she thought, she didn’t need it anymore; it had led her to exactly where she’d wanted to go. Then Mrs. McLachlan gasped out loud, stiffened slightly, and pulled back from the embrace to gaze intently into Damp’s face.