Obsidian Pebble

by Rhys Jones

  “The ghost?” Ellie suggested. “Miss Arkwright did say that poltergeists can move stuff.”

  “And open and shut doors?” Oz shook his head dubiously.

  “What do you think she was looking for?” Ruff asked, spooning apple crumble into his mouth with alarming speed.

  “Anything and everything, I expect. She knows we bought the dor from Eldred, don’t forget.”

  Ruff nodded.

  “You’ve got everything safely hidden, have you?” Ellie asked, chewing her lip.

  “No one but us three knows about the clock. I can’t think of anywhere else that’s safer.”

  And neither could the other two.

  Not every day was damp and horrible that December. Occasionally, a proper winter’s day would turn up with a sharp morning frost and a clear blue sky, in which the sun tried vainly to warm the air. On these days, Oz would hurry home and make use of the thin afternoon light to practise goalkeeping. It was on one of these bracing days, as Oz hurried back to Penwurt, when he walked through the gates to find two extra cars parked in the driveway. One was a black Rolls Royce with blackened windows. The other was Lorenzo Heeps’ Jaguar.

  Oz went straight to the kitchen to fetch a glass of milk, and while he was pouring it his mother appeared, looking slightly flushed and a little apologetic.

  “Hi, Oz. You’re back early.”

  “No, I’m not,” Oz said. “I’m always back at this time.”

  “Are you?” Mrs. Chambers said airily. “Must have lost track of time. We have guests.”

  “I saw the cars,” Oz said.

  “Then you ought to say hello.”

  “Mum,” said Oz, fearing where this was going, “it’s not raining and I really need to get outside to practise.”

  “Don’t worry. I just want you to say hello. Just to be polite,” Mrs. Chambers added, seeing the look of misery on Oz’s face.

  Grudgingly, Oz followed his mother into the room where he’d spoken to Dr. Mackie and to the policemen. Heeps sat on the sofa, and it was he who spoke as soon as Oz walked through the door.

  “Here’s my little man,” Heeps said, beaming.

  Oz offered a toothless smile in the hope that they wouldn’t see his teeth grinding behind his lips.

  “Oz, this is Mr. Gerber.” His mother waved her hand towards another man sitting in one of the armchairs.

  Oz took in a tall, upright figure dressed in a black suit and highly polished shoes. His shirt was white and had a curiously high collar done up tightly with a black tie. Folded on the man’s knees was a heavy black coat, with a hat to match. He was very pale, and the contrast between his white skin and his oddly long, swept-back black hair was stark.

  But it was the man’s face that drew Oz’s gaze. It was smooth and taut, except for around the eyes, where a hundred tiny lines spread out from sunken orbs that glittered between dark-rimmed lids that looked as if they’d been deprived of sleep for a long, long time. The face was expressionless and Oz got the strangest feeling he was looking at a waxwork, but those eyes stared back with a dark and calculating intelligence. Gerber stood slowly, like a thin, shadowy insect unfurling itself from a cocoon. He was taller than Heeps as he held out a hand to Oz. It was long and bony and felt cold in Oz’s palm.

  “How do you do, Oscar?” said Gerber in a voice that was deep and devoid of any accent.

  “Fine, thanks,” Oz replied, and stood regarding them.

  “Lorenzo and Mr. Gerber called for some tea,” Mrs. Chambers explained, her expression an unconvincing grimace of a smile.

  Oz nodded and gave her a scathing look. He wasn’t born yesterday.

  An uncomfortable pause opened up and ended only when Mrs. Chambers let out an awkward little laugh and said, “Oz wants to get on with some football practise, don’t you, Oz?”

  “Yeah. If I can.”

  “Off you go, then,” Heeps said. “Don’t let us keep you. We’re just talking adult stuff here,” he added with a sort of donkey snort as he smoothed his beard with a thumb and finger.

  As he hurried away, Oz heard Gerber say in his slow bass voice, “Charming lad.”

  Oz practised hard, but couldn’t concentrate as much as he would have liked to because he kept thinking about how weird Gerber looked. And, more importantly, he kept wondering why he was here at Penwurt at all. Oz had seen a couple of overflowing cardboard boxes in the hall, which meant that Heeps had brought some stuff back. But he didn’t need Gerber’s help for that.

  By half past four, it was getting too dark for Oz to see clearly and he missed a couple of saves. It was no good; he’d have to pack everything away until the weekend. As he replaced the mattresses against the wall in the unused garage that had become his storage space, he heard voices and saw a light flick on outside the front porch. It was dark in the garage, the single bulb long since blown, and he knew that no one would see him in this deep shadow.

  Heeps and Gerber appeared with Mrs. Chambers behind them. Gerber took a step back to admire the building and Oz heard murmured words like “…magnificent,” and “imposing,” but despite his straining it was really difficult to hear anything clearly. Passing traffic on the street was loud enough to interfere with Oz’s hearing, and it was just about approaching rush hour in Seabourne so cars were annoyingly frequent. From somewhere in the house came the shrill noise of a telephone ringing and Oz saw his mother excuse herself to answer it. He heard the front door close, and then saw Heeps and Gerber exchange some words in low tones.

  Straining, he managed to hear only fragments of what was being said. He heard Heeps say, “…bloody stubborn boy,” and “…come around eventually,” but Gerber’s deep, sonorous voice was more difficult to pick up. In a lull of traffic he heard, “…everyone has a price,” then a gap and something odd that sounded like, “…Rollins in the manger.” They were just isolated snatches which made no real sense at all to Oz. They clearly did to Heeps, though, who broke off and laughed uproariously at what Gerber had just said.

  But then movement from the corner of the house caught Oz’s eye. Someone was hurrying towards the men. A slight, female figure strode purposefully forward. Lucy Bishop walked straight past a surprised Heeps and went right up to Gerber, who watched her approach without moving. She said something to him and although Oz didn’t catch it all, from her tone it sounded urgent and somehow imploring.

  “Please…we can’t…only you…help him…”

  Gerber spoke only once and it was too low for Oz to hear, but the effect it had on Lucy Bishop was to make her body turn rigid before sagging dejectedly. Gerber turned to walk towards the Rolls Royce, but Lucy Bishop put out a hand to grab his coat. Gerber stopped and looked down at the hand. He didn’t say anything, but the driver’s door of the Rolls Royce opened and Oz saw a figure half-turn as if to get out. Gerber didn’t move, but both Lucy Bishop’s and Heeps’ heads snapped up towards the car. Instantly, Lucy Bishop let go of Gerber’s sleeve and took an involuntary step backwards, while Heeps, too, let out a strangled bark of surprise.

  Gerber didn’t wait any longer. Quickly, he moved towards the car, opened the back door and got in. With that, the figure in the driving seat turned back into the unlit darkness of the car and shut the door with a heavy click. Immediately, the engine purred into life and the car began to glide out onto Magnus Street.

  When Oz looked back, Lucy Bishop had disappeared and Heeps was getting into his Jaguar, but Oz saw that he kept glancing about him, as if he was worried that he was being watched. There was nothing smooth about Heeps’ leaving, and the big car’s tyres squealed as rubber strained for traction against the tarmac.

  Oz stood in the deep shadow of the garage, feeling his own pulse beat rapidly in his temples. What had threatened to leave the driver seat of Gerber’s Rolls had been more than a simple chauffeur. A shadowy shape had filled the space with the squat, bald-headed driver at its very centre, and that shape had sported dark, folded wings with clawed fingers and a wrinkled, flat-nosed face with hug
e ears. In the darkness of the garage, recalling it sent a shudder through Oz. He had never seen a six-foot-tall bat before, but suddenly he knew exactly what it might look like.

  * * *

  Oz told Ellie and Ruff later that night, as they chatted online.

  “But what were Gerber and Heeps doing at yours?” Ellie asked.

  “Bringing Dad’s stuff back, apparently.”

  “Likely story,” Ruff said.

  “So if it wasn’t a social call, either…?” Ellie left the question hanging.

  “Probably looking at a nice property to buy,” Oz said grimly.

  “But your mum, she—”

  “Isn’t talking to me about anything anymore,” Oz cut across her bitterly. “I reckon she’s just ignoring what I think.”

  “That’s buzzard,” Ruff said.

  “What’s worse is that Lucy Bishop is obviously tied up with Gerber, somehow.”

  “You think she’s spying for him?” Ruff asked.

  “What else?” Oz said. “But the funny thing is, she was as freaked at seeing that bat bloke in the car as anyone.”

  “So, what now?” Ruff said.

  “Gerber,” Oz replied. “We find out as much as we can about him. Try and work out why he wants Penwurt so badly.”

  Afterwards, Oz went up to the library to finish off an essay on a poem they’d read in class that afternoon, but he took his laptop with him. He’d emailed Caleb to tell him about Lucy Bishop and Gerber, but there’d been no reply. He’d just about given up at ten, as he finished off the essay and began collecting his books for the morning, when he heard the tell-tale tone telling him he had incoming mail. It was from Caleb, and it was a very strange and very short message.

  Oz, thanks for keeping me informed. Best we don’t do this too often. Be careful, Oz. Be very careful. I suggest you delete this email once you’ve read it.

  He did read it, several times in fact. What did Caleb mean? Be careful of Lucy Bishop, or of Gerber? Oz knew well enough to be careful of Heeps. Or was Caleb talking about something else altogether? He could try ringing him, but Caleb hadn’t picked up the last few times he’d tried. Oz suspected that his mum had made Caleb promise not to be in contact.

  Frustrated, Oz got up, switched off the light and stared out the turret window at the night sky. He loved being up here when the stars were out, and there were stars tonight, millions of them, twinkling up there in the infinity of space. Oz knew that what he was seeing was light from hundreds of thousand of years ago. The farther away, the longer it took to travel. Chances were that some of those stars didn’t even exist in the here and now. It was a mind-boggling thought. The traffic had died and all was quiet on Magnus Street. Somewhere, he heard a dog bark. And, as he moved to pick up his books and go to bed, from deep in the orphanage behind the library wall Oz could swear he heard, faint but unmistakable, the sound of distant footsteps.

  Chapter 13

  Gloopeck

  On the Saturday before the end of term exams started, Oz was in his bedroom grappling with science. But his mind, never keen on being shackled to the revision desk, was having trouble concentrating. Ellie had texted him the night before to say that she’d been picked for the school’s under-fourteen hockey team, and would be playing that morning. It was an amazing achievement, given that she’d be going up against girls two years older than she was. Not that Ellie was bothered by any of that; Ellie wasn’t scared of anything.

  Oz would have gone to support her, but it was an away game against Reghampton in the neighbouring county. So, he’d gritted his teeth and attacked biology, with one eye on the school Christmas party as the prize. Unfortunately, his attack was being repelled at the gate and in the last hour he’d learnt nothing. Not that it had been a complete waste of time; he’d made a paper clip into quite a passable sculpture of a swan, rearranged all the pencils in his desk-tidy in size order, and drawn a dragon biting the head off a knight in the back of his revision scrapbook. And all this despite shoving his laptop under the bed, out of temptation’s way.

  But he had left his phone on, and suddenly it chirped plaintively, signalling the arrival of a text message. He was surprised to see that it was from Savannah Fanshaw.

  Difclty revsng? We cn hlp. Cm ovr.

  Normally, Oz would have found a hundred reasons for not even contemplating such an offer, but after an hour and a half of trying to remember what a cell wall did, he was willing to try anything. Surprisingly, he had little difficulty convincing his mother of the merits of a visit to number 3.

  “Uh, yeah, Mum, Savannah texted me. They’re having a bit of trouble with science revision. I said I’d go over and help them for a bit.”

  Mrs. Chambers was wrestling with a pile of dirty sheets and an overworked washing machine as Oz explained this. “You’re so kind, Oz,” she said, looking very harassed. “Lunch will be at one or thereabouts.”

  The twins came to meet him at the door of number 3, dressed in identical jeans and pink T-shirts.

  “As you can see, one of us is wearing a purple wrist band so that you can tell us apart.”

  Oz smiled nervously as the one with the wristband waved her hand and pointed to herself. “Savannah, as if you didn’t know.”

  Oz hadn’t known, actually, but was not going to admit it.

  “Come in,” said Sydney, and she turned and trotted upstairs. “We’ve been watching you trying to study.”

  “Really?” Oz said weakly as he followed. He kept forgetting about their little hobby with the telescope.

  “That school biology book you were reading looked awful,” Savannah said.

  “It is,” Oz agreed.

  “That’s why we texted you. We’ve got exams next week, too, but we like biology,” Sydney explained.

  “Even cell biology?” Oz said, not trying to keep the disgust out of his voice. “Chloroplasts and cytoplasm, ugh. It’s just so confusing.”

  “We know,” Sydney said.

  “That’s why we downloaded all the questions asked by science teachers to year sevens in two hundred schools across the country and found the thirty commonest ones,” said Savannah with a smile.

  Oz followed them up to the attic room, where a pile of papers and white cards lay scattered over the floor between two bean bags. Savannah pointed a finger at a bowl of pink sherbet-filled flying saucers. “Want one?”

  Oz did.

  “Then we wrote out the answers, like the definition of plant cell and stuff, on cards,” Sydney went on.

  “And then we play snap with them,” added Savannah brightly.

  Oz was staring at them, his mouth full of tangy sherbet. He had no idea what they were talking about.

  “Try it. First of all, we’ll ask you ten biology questions, see how many you get right, okay?” Savannah said.

  “We play biology snap for a bit and then we’ll test you again. See how you do,” Sydney explained breezily.

  Oz shrugged. Anything was better than staring at his mind-numbing school textbook.

  He got a miserable four out of ten on the test. Sydney then proceeded to deal out thirty index cards to Oz and explained that he needed to look at them carefully, because some of them just differed by a word or part of a sentence. Oz did as he was told, and watched as Sydney took them back and gave them, plus another pile of thirty which were identical, to Savannah to shuffle. Oz had played snap many times before, but this was slightly more difficult. The first few times he got it wrong, and it made him look at the cards much more closely. It took quite a bit of concentration, helped a lot by pink lemonade and sherbet, but after fifteen minutes, Oz was getting a lot better.

  “Right,” said Savannah, “let’s test you again.”

  “What is an organ?” asked Sydney, holding up a question paper and clutching it to her chest so that Oz couldn’t peek.

  He resisted, with great difficulty, the urge to say “a big thing with pipes that you hear in church.” The truth was he knew that one, anyway. He’d just won a huge pot o
f twenty cards on that very definition. “Umm, groups of tissues working together,” he said, almost automatically.

  Sydney beamed.

  They asked him another eleven questions and he got them all right.

  “That’s amazing,” Oz said after he got question number twelve on “name of cell that transmits nerve impulses” right, too.

  The girls smiled at each other.

  “Have you got cards for all of science?” Oz asked hopefully.

  Sydney got up and walked to a bookcase. “Energy, gases or friction?”

  “We’ve done all of those,” Oz said.

  “So, let’s play,” Savannah said.

  At five to one, Oz called his mother and asked if he could stay at number 3 for lunch because things were going so well. By three o’clock, he’d cracked science.

  “Of course, you can play on your own,” Sydney said as she packed the friction and gases cards away. “You just make two piles of cards and take from each pile in turn. It works just as well—”

  “—but it’s not as much fun,” Savannah added.

  Oz had another go on their telescope again, and was pleased to see that they still had the SPEXIT. This time, he chose the Roller Coaster Reality ride. It was even better than Wild White Water. After three goes Oz sat back, exhausted, even though he’d been nowhere.

  “You did say that these were made by JG Industries, didn’t you?” he asked, hoping the room was going to stop spinning soon.

  “Yes, they are,” Sydney said. “And Dad managed to get them to let us keep them for a bit longer.”

  “Gerber came to my house a few weeks ago,” Oz said, unable to hide the distaste in his voice.

  “Yeah, we saw him,” Savannah said.

  “Creepy, isn’t he?” added Sydney in hushed tones.

  “Mega creepy. But he’s nothing compared to his chauffeur.” Oz explained to them what he’d seen in the front seat of the Rolls. The girls listened with identical looks of distaste.

  “Gerber’s been here, too, a couple of times,” Sydney said.

  “We didn’t like him,” they said together.