Alex whipped off his pack and looked inside. A torch. Would that do? A penknife. Absolutely not. There were weapons all around them they could use if they wanted to. But Alex sensed that to pick up a sword or a gun would be giving in to the mountain. Perhaps that’s what it wanted, for them to acknowledge they could not do without weapons of war? And it would be futile – just as war was futile – because the creature was not substantial.
He continued to scrabble around in the bag. The compasses were absolutely useless of course.
‘It’s coming closer,’ said Chloe, her fingers gripping her palms so hard they were white and bloodless. ‘Closer and closer.’
And indeed Katerfelto was tightening its circle. Soon the black hem of its cloak was flicking over the faces of the children. They could not feel it, but they could sense its coldness. It was like being whipped across the eyes by a freezing wind. Horror built in the minds and hearts of the two children. They wanted to jump up and run. They wanted to flee from this terrible force that moved upon them with such vicious certainty.
‘Close your eyes,’ ordered Chloe. ‘Maybe if we don’t look at it?’
Both of them closed their eyes tightly, and Alex tried to imagine that Katerfelto was not there. But even so the coldness of Katerfelto’s breath swept through Alex’s mind. There was no escaping this fiend simply by closing one’s eyes and imagining it gone. Its presence was far stronger than the mere thoughts and imaginings of a young boy. It had crushed powerful men in its time and reduced them to whimpering madness. It had driven women on to the spikes of bayonets, as they strove to escape it. None could withstand naked fear when it rushed in as an evil wind.
Alex opened his eyes and took one last look in the backpack.
What? These? Why yes, of course.
The matches.
As the darkness continued to thicken he took out the box of long-stemmed matches and struck one, lighting it.
Katerfelto recoiled with a moan.
‘Here, hold this, Clo,’ said Alex, handing her the burning match. ‘I’ll do another one.’
He struck a second match.
The dark tail of the monster god retracted sharply.
Fire. It hated fire.
Light. It hated light.
‘We’ve got it on the run,’ yelled Alex excitedly. ‘See, it’s going.’
Katerfelto was withdrawing like a swift tide going out, pulling in its edges, retreating before the fire and light. It was making strange sounds as it left. It was a creature in pain. It seemed to separate now into small rivulets of darkness, which drained into holes in the piles of weapons. Down the barrels of rifles, through the tracks of tanks, under the tubes of mortars, it seeped into the side of the mountain. As it went, so did the terror, and the children felt the fright drain from their hearts and minds. This creature was fashioned of nothing; nothing at all, except fear.
‘I hope it doesn’t come back,’ said Chloe, blowing out the flame before it burned her fingers. ‘Have you got any more matches?’
‘A whole box full,’ confirmed Alex, putting them in his chinos pocket. ‘But we’d better be careful with them. After all, fire in an attic and all that …’
‘Yes, of course. The place is made of tinder.’
‘Exactly. But so long as we’re careful.’
Somewhere in the attic one of the Removal Firm stiffened and a sudden chill went through him. What was that? Had he smelled burning sulphur again? What dreadful irresponsibility! He took his hands from his khaki dustcoat pockets and formed a cup around his nose with them. Then he breathed in deeply, sniffing the air. Sulphur, definitely. Someone, somewhere had struck another match. This was the second or third time in as many days. Yes, there it was again, another match. Fire, the forbidden wonder of nature. Forbidden to all in the attic. Those who used fire were summarily ejected from the attic, sent out into Chaos, that nowhere place down below the boards. The creation of fire was the deepest, darkest sin, the worst of crimes, in the attic. The Removal Firm might fuss over woodworm, death-watch beetles, dry rot, nibbling mice, canker and other dangers to the attic, but fire was dealt with very harshly. He and his colleagues would continue to seek out the criminals and when they found them, they would remove them.
CHAPTER 8
Scissor-birds that Blood Your Head
They descended from the mountain to the plains below.
There were broad open spaces, bare wooden boards which stretched lengthways in the direction in which they were heading. They camped for a short while at a spot under one of those mighty timbers that supported the roof. It had some rusty nails protruding from it and Alex hung his backpack and other equipment on it. As he did so he became interested in the pillar itself, which soared upwards, thick as a mature oak, to split and spread itself high above, in order to support the roof.
He slapped the pillar with his hand, feeling strength in its solidity.
‘You know, sis,’ he said, looking round at other such pillars which stood four-square every hundred metres in each direction, ‘without these fellows, the roof would collapse on us.’
Chloe lay back, her head on a rolled-up coat, and stared into the dimness above.
‘I’ve been studying stresses and pressures on the arches of bridges and I’m sure these do a similar job. You don’t seem to realise how important they are. If I was to chop this one down there would be too much pressure on the next one, and the one behind, and those to the sides. They’d give way too and that would mean more and more pillars cracking and splitting and collapsing – you know, the domino effect – and finally the whole roof would fall down on the heads of everyone in here. It would be an end to this place for good.’ He paused. ‘Just one of these pillars down, that’s all it would take, to crush this world.’
‘Cheerful Charlie, aren’t you?’
‘I’m just saying how fragile this place is. It looks sturdy enough, it’s true, but it ain’t.’
‘A delicate balance?’
‘Well, I don’t know about delicate, but a balance, sure. You interfere with that balance, and WHAM, the whole lot comes crashing down. Everything underneath would be flattened, squashed to pulp. A few cockroaches might live, but not much else.’
Chloe was happy when they moved on and he stopped talking. She preferred her thoughts to dwell on lighter things than the end of the world.
Mostly the apex of the roof was high, out of sight, but they reached an area where the roof was lower and a tangle of rafters above their heads formed a canopy similar to that in a rainforest or jungle. The children sensed movement occasionally in the rafters and believed there were bats up there. Neither Chloe nor Alex were scared of bats, or really any kind of wildlife. Chloe couldn’t stand girls who squealed at anything unusual. Alex didn’t like creepy-crawlies but he was all right with bigger creatures.
They were always seeing movements out of the corner of their eyes, though. The attic was that kind of place. It was a patchwork of shadows and half-light and dazzling sunshine. One drifted from dimly lit corners where the dust was centimetres thick, into brilliant spaces where the sunlight was blinding. Twilight to bright light in a moment. It was no wonder, they told each other, that the light played tricks with their eyes. Shadowy creatures danced with quick movements here, there and everywhere, but you could never catch them in full sight. Maddeningly, they were always fleeting.
However, looking up into the woven network of rafters at one point, Alex was given a start. This was real! No figment of the mind. There, looking down at him, was a doll’s painted face. The blue eyes of the doll, set in pale-pink china, stared at him unblinkingly. She had red cupid’s-bow lips and bulging cheeks of rosy hue. The doll was clinging to one rafter with chubby little ceramic hands, her tiny feet in black strapover shiny shoes on the rafter below. She was wearing a filthy white dress, torn in places. Suddenly, inexplicably, she smiled with a row of neat even teeth. Then she climbed up, as fast as a monkey, into the upper canopy and out of sight.
Alex
was so frightened he could hardly breathe.
‘There’s something up there,’ he croaked.
‘I know: bats,’ replied his sister. ‘Come on.’
Alex said no more. There wasn’t any point in worrying Chloe. In any case, they were emerging from the canopy into a more spacious area. There were man-sized figures standing like scarecrows as far as the eye could see. All had definite faces: some hideous, others not so. Alex shuddered, but his sister had been prepared for this.
‘A Land of Masks,’ she murmured.
‘Shouldn’t we arm ourselves?’ asked Alex, taking out his penknife. ‘Any golf clubs around?’
‘If you walk about with weapons, you only antagonise people.’
‘People?’
‘Well, whatever.’
‘We could pretend we were playing golf.’
Chloe said, ‘It’s best we approach pure of heart.’
‘Is it?’ Alex was unconvinced.
The ‘figures’ had been fashioned from odds and ends and hardly resembled people at all. Most of them had no arms or legs, being merely cones made of old clothes, washing line poles, waste bins, that sort of junk. But they were topped by the most beautiful – and ugly – masks. Some were traditional carnival masks which Chloe recognised as being from the Venice carnival. Others were more exotic, from Africa, Polynesia, China and Borneo. Some of the African masks were quite scary: they were meant to be, having once been used in tribal rituals to drive out demons. Others from the same continent were obviously meant to represent animals – lion masks, elephant masks, hippo masks – and were not frightening at all. There were grinning devil masks from China and mournful demi-god masks from the islands of the Pacific Ocean. Very unnerving. Most with hollow eyes. There were huge giant masks at the back, on the edges of the attic, and smaller ones near to the path which the children were using.
‘Don’t look at them,’ said Chloe, walking among the forest of figures. ‘Try not to answer them.’
‘What?’ cried a nervous Alex.
‘Over heres,’ said a mask with a mouth formed in a perfect wooden O. ‘Sir, sir, over heres. Thine eyes must perceive my terrible plight.’
‘Don’t look at him,’ warned Chloe, gripping her brother’s sleeve. ‘Don’t listen to him.’
‘Oh, please master, mistress, helping me. I am a real and bona fide person in thrall to these creatures,’ cried another mask, one of straw and raffia with wild hair and whiskers. ‘If you could just assist me to get out, my liberty would be your just afters.’
‘Maybe there is someone in there,’ Alex said. ‘What if there’s another kid like us?’
‘He has long gone, our Gatherer. Gone, gone away.’
‘When have you heard a kid talk like that? Don’t listen to it. You mustn’t take any notice. They want you to take them out of here and they’ll hypnotise you to do it. The bat told me that once they get hold of you, they won’t let you go.’
‘What – what will they do?’
‘Just keep walking.’
‘Lord of walking things, borrow me.’
‘Happy child, taking please an unhappy face?’
At certain points they had to move quite close to the masked figures, but Chloe kept her eyes determinedly on the far side of the Land of Masks. She gripped her younger brother’s hand almost fiercely, pulling him along with her. Alex wasn’t always the strongest person in such a situation. He was impressionable and easily persuaded, like the time he gave all his pocket money to a beggar on the London Underground. The important thing was to ignore the pleas of the masks. Oh indeed, it was difficult to ignore the imploring voices around them. Chloe was surprised how hard it was not to turn and look, but she knew how dangerous it was to fall for Attica’s tricks. She was learning fast that if they were to meet Jordy again, find the map and get out of this nightmare, they had to keep their wits about them.
‘We’re out!’ she said in a relieved voice, still holding on to Alex. ‘We made it.’
‘Free,’ said Alex in a peculiar voice. ‘Brothers and sisters, goodbye.’
Chloe turned, alarmed.
Alex was wearing a mask.
‘Oh, Alex,’ she said in despair.
The mask he had on was made of raffia and clay. It had a tall conical top to it, like a witch’s hat, painted black with white sticks attached to it. The face was painted black with white spots. There were holes for the eyes and a slit for the mouth. Here and there, on the forehead and running up the strange hat, were white zig-zag lines. The final touch was the beard of thick brown raffia. The mouth and eyes were lined with white paint.
‘How did that happen?’ cried Chloe. ‘You must have grabbed it with your other hand.’
Trust Alex to get himself in trouble, even after warnings. Now Chloe felt she had to be firm with him.
‘Take it off!’ ordered Chloe, gripping the mask. ‘Throw it back in there.’
‘Leave me be, woman,’ it said. ‘Desist. I am Makishi. You cannot throw me away like a piece of trash.’
Alex sided with the mask. ‘Leave it alone, Clo. I like it.’
‘You can’t like it – it’s hideous,’ said Chloe. She was afraid the mask had somehow bewitched Alex into putting it on his face. It might eventually do her young brother harm.
‘It lets me see things,’ replied Alex mysteriously.
‘What things?’
Alex was cagey. ‘I’m not telling you. You’ll want a go with it. I might let you later, when I’m fed up with it.’
‘I wouldn’t put that thing on if you paid me. It smells for a start. They must have glued it together with buffalo dung.’
‘You’re not going to get the chance. It’s my mask. I found it and I get to keep it.’
‘And I get to keep Alex.’
‘See?’ said Chloe. ‘That’s the kind of remark that worries me. Now, what do you want?’
‘I don’t want anything,’ replied a peeved Alex. ‘I just want to keep the mask on.’
‘I’m talking to the mask. Mask, now you’ve escaped, why do you need my brother?’
‘To walk, to move, to be carrying me.’
Of course, the mask was nothing without a wearer. It had no powers at all if it were not worn by someone. Chloe had to believe that Alex was still all right behind the mask. She asked him how he was.
‘I’m fine,’ he replied. ‘I like the mask.’
Chloe said, ‘Well, you can keep it on for now. We’ll think about getting it off you later.’
For the moment Chloe decided they just had to keep going. The day was fading from the skylights and she wanted to be well away from the other masks before she camped for the night. Still holding Alex’s hand – she was afraid the mask might run away with her brother if she let go – she continued on her way. A while later she stopped and stood still for a moment.
‘Why do we do a pause?’ asked the mask.
‘We have to rest. We’re only children. We can’t walk for ever.’
‘Do not be tricking me.’
‘I’m not. Look, if I let go my brother’s hand, will you stay? I don’t want you running away with him.’
‘Where would I go? I go where you go.’
The answer sounded genuine. Good. She hoped she was right in thinking that the mask had only limited knowledge. Chloe was weary and couldn’t hold on to Alex’s hand for ever. Although she was strong in spirit she was tired physically. There would come a time, she was sure, when all this would be over, but for now she had to tough it out. She let go of Alex’s hand. He did not run. Good. Now she had to question the mask. Knowledge was the key to many things. If she found out where it came from, who made it, she might be able to discover weaknesses in its power over her brother.
‘Where are you from?’ she asked, sitting Alex down and removing his backpack. ‘You’re not from around here.’
‘I am from a hot place.’
‘Borneo? South America? Madagascar?’
‘Many flies. Many rivers.’
‘What sort of animals do you have? Any elephants?’
‘Yes, elephants.’
‘Big ears?’
‘Of course big ears.’
‘Well Asian elephants have smaller ears. Do you have any lions?’
‘Lions, yes.’
‘Ah, Africa – somewhere. How did you get from Africa to here?’ she asked casually. ‘Were you brought here?’
‘I come in brown paper twined-about with strings.’
It seemed that was all she was going to get.
‘What did you say your name was?’
‘Makishi. I am the One Who Circumcises Boys.’
A startled Alex interrupted with, ‘Does what?’
‘Never mind,’ said Chloe, ‘but you might want to get rid of that mask as soon as possible.’
She left the mask alone now and took some food from her bag. Their supply was getting very low. They would need to find another source soon. She wondered how she was going to feed Alex. Through the hole in the mask? She tried it, handing some to her brother, who said, ‘Thanks, sis,’ in that faraway voice and popped it through the opening. ‘Not as good as pigeon.’
What was he talking about? Chloe had far more to worry about than pigeons. Africa. What did she know about Africa? Her heart sank. Not very much.
‘Mask, what kind of grass are you made from?’
‘Strong grass. Elephant grass.’
‘So you’re very durable. You’ll last a long time?’
‘For ever.’
Nelson was having the best of times in the attic. It was one vast hunting ground, better than any garden he had ever owned. The place was teeming with mice, there were birds to be had in the dark corners of the eaves, and there were rats too. He’d already had a run in with a rat and of course had come off best, despite being handicapped. He didn’t consider himself at a disadvantage, having only three legs. It actually gave him an edge, since his adversaries took his invalidity for granted. They reckoned ill who did so, for he taught them a great lesson about three-cornered cats.
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