by Ishbelle Bee
“Good morning, Miss Dewdoll. My name is Mr Loveheart and I’m here to rescue you.”
Attempt to steal the butterfly, rescue Boo Boo and blow up the Professor
It’s two o’clock in the morning and Constable Walnut and myself are about to break into the Professor’s house. We’re hiding in a bush near the moat.
“I’ve brought my lucky ferret leg, sir,” said Walnut, and he whipped out a disgusting, deformed thing from his pocket and held it under my nose
“My God, what happened to that unfortunate creature!?”
There is a rummaging from the bushes and Mr Loveheart appears with a pistol and what appears to be a bomb.
“Lovely evening,” he says.
“What the hell are you doing here?” I’m confounded.
“I’m here to rescue Boo Boo and blow the villain up. And you?”
“We’re here to steal his favourite butterfly. Can we at least accomplish that before you blow the building up?”
“I’m getting confused,” says Walnut, still gripping the ferret leg, “If he’s blowing the Professor up, then we don’t need to steal the butterfly, do we?”
“Why don’t we all go in together. Make it a group effort,” says Loveheart, glancing with suspicion at the object in Walnut’s hand,
Walnut breaks the side window using a rock and we climb through into one of the hallways and sneak along the passageway, the butterflies above our heads, row upon row like ancestral portraits. The moon is our only light. Walnut occasionally bumps into me.
“What a slum he lives in,” Loveheart remarks. “He has no understanding of décor.”
“We need to get Boo Boo first,” I say, and we ascend a small spiral staircase leading to the upper floor where there are six doors and yet more butterflies. The first room is an empty bedroom used to store the killing jars and poison for the butterflies. Walnut opens the second room, which creaks softly like a haunted house. The room is empty except for the walls where seven photographs in frames sit, each one with a picture of a woman. Each woman wearing a wedding dress. White lace, white smiles, white ghosts. I recognize Lucy Dewdoll immediately: smile shy, awkward, ill-fitting dress, a lizard cream frill round her neck, ruffled, suffocating.
It is the picture that is next to her that worries me more. It is Boo Boo. She is sitting on a chair in the photograph, her little legs dangling. Her shoe wonky, her eyes glazed over as though lost deep in space.
Loveheart glances over my shoulder. “Bride number seven?”
I feel sick to my stomach. We leave that room and proceed to the third. Walnut trips over the carpet, Loveheart commenting, “I feel secure in the knowledge that I am working with professionals.”
The third room is an empty nursery with butterfly wallpaper. The fourth room is filled with shelves with hundreds of jars. Loveheart picks one up and examines it curiously.
“What’s inside them?” I whisper.
“Dead butterflies,” he replies.
“I have this bad feeling, sir,” says Constable Walnut.
“Keep it to yourself, Walnut.”
It is Loveheart who opens the fifth door, which reveals a massive bedroom where the Professor lies asleep on a huge black four poster bed. His favourite butterfly hangs above his head, as black as space. Soft-footedly Loveheart creeps round the bed and takes the butterfly off the wall while the Professor snores.
I go straight into the last room and find Boo Boo. I pick her up in my arms and carry her down the corridor. Walnut is holding the butterfly and Mr Loveheart is busy placing the bomb under the Professor’s bed.
Loveheart comes running out. “Quickly!” he cries, and we all run down the stairs and towards the window. I manage to push Boo Boo out through the window and then turn to see Professor Hummingbird and he’s opening his mouth and butterflies are flying out, zooming towards us.
The six wives of Professor Hummingbird
1. Elizabeth: poisoned with arsenic
2. Rowena: pushed down the stairs
3. Guinevere: buried alive
4. Pandora: committed to an asylum
5. Lottie: strangled
6. Lucy: committed to an asylum and then escaped
Detective Waxford returns to Darkwound
I hate this bloody village. My foot has not healed properly and I’m limping about. The morphine takes the pain away at least. I’m on a pony and trap heading for the Professor’s home. Detective White, Constable Walnut and Mr Loveheart have been missing for the last week. I am prepared for any eventuality as this part of England is full of mad people. The forests are sinister, dense, stuffed with strange plant life. I was really hoping never to come back to this backwater village with its abnormally high criminal activity.
I had been considering an early retirement from the force: a nice little cottage and an overweight cat for company.
Where are you, Detective White?
We cross the bridge and enter the courtyard to the Hummingbird moated castle, and there’s a little girl drawing with a piece of chalk on the stone slabs.
“Miss,” I say.
She ignores me and so I step closer. I see she’s drawing butterflies, hundreds of them.
“Miss,” I repeat.
She looks up.
“Who are you?” I say.
“My name is Boo Boo. The Professor adopted me.”
“Oh, has he now. I am Detective Waxford and I am looking for Detective White, Constable Walnut and Mr Loveheart, who are all currently missing. Have you seen them?”
“Yes. They tried to rescue me and blow the Professor up.”
“BLOODY HELL. Where are they?”
She doesn’t reply.
“Where is the Professor, Boo Boo?”
She points towards the door.
I draw my gun out and enter the house; that creepy corridor of red and bloody butterflies. I move along the red carpets. All those insects, all those silver pins.
“Where are you, Professor?” I shout.
I move further inside the maze. And I hear, what is that noise? A tapping, a fluttering, then I finally see. Oh God. The butterflies, all the butterflies are moving. They are alive!
And he suddenly appears from his study smiling, “How can I help you, Detective Waxford?”
“Where are they?” I point the gun at his head
“Who?” he says softly.
“YOU KNOW WHO. WHERE ARE THEY YOU FUCKING LUNATIC?!”
“Calm down, Detective.”
“Professor Hummingbird. I am taking you in for questioning.”
“Oh, you’re so dramatic,” he sighs
“THIS IS FROM THE MAN WHOSE HOME LOOKS LIKE THE LAIR OF A VILE MURDERER.”
“Tut Tut, don’t get yourself into a tizz-woz.”
“I am very happy to blow your demented brain out of your skull right here and dump you in the moat, but I need to know what you’ve done with them.”
He shrugs his shoulders
“Are they dead?”
He doesn’t answer.
“ARE THEY DEAD?” I scream in his ear.
He sticks his tongue out. A tiny green butterfly zooms out of his mouth into the endless red.
Infuriated, I march him at gun point to the pony and trap where Boo Boo is drawing a giant butterfly.
“Boo Boo, come with me,” I say, and lift her onto it. The Professor waves goodbye to his butterflies, “Toodle oooooooo.”
Professor Hummingbird questioned at Scotland Yard
The Professor’s lawyer, Cedric Evening-Star, arrives to attend the questioning
“I’m so sorry, Cedric,” Hummingbird’s voice is playful, “I really don’t understand how this has happened. I’m not sure what Detective Waxford thinks I’ve done but this is ridiculous.”
“Shut up, Hummingbird. Your adopted daughter told us that Detective White, Constable Walnut and Mr Loveheart were in your house last Sunday early morning to rescue her. That was the last time any of them were seen.”
“You mean kidna
p,” he retorts.
“Explain to me what happened.”
“I was awoken sometime after two in the morning by footsteps and voices. I noticed when I got up that my prize butterfly had been removed from the wall. I went downstairs and caught sight of Detective White with Boo Boo in his arms, pushing her through a window; Constable Walnut with my butterfly in his hands and Mr Loveheart telling everyone to get out quickly because he’d placed a bomb under my bed.”
Cedric Evening-Star added, “So, kidnapping, theft and attempted murder.”
“And what happened next?”
“The bomb went off and blew up my bedroom and the entire roof of the keep.”
“And?”
“Well, there was a lot of dust in the air and debris falling about and I was confused and dizzy.”
“Where is Detective White?”
“I don’t know where any of them are. They must have escaped.”
“Why is Boo Boo still with you if they escaped?”
“She came back to me. She obviously didn’t feel safe with them.”
“Do you have the butterfly?”
He pauses for a moment. “Yes, Constable Walnut must have dropped it. I was lucky. It is priceless.”
“What total shite,” I say.
“I beg your pardon,” Cedric Evening-Star gasps.
“It’s rather convenient that Boo Boo and your butterfly are returned to you and three men missing. What did you do to them?”
“Search my house if you must, you won’t find them.”
“Not without a warrant,” adds Mr Evening-Star. “This harassment of my client will stop now.”
I leave the room to speak to Boo Boo. She is sitting in my office, waiting for me, drawing butterflies on my desk.
“Boo Boo, tell me the truth. What happened that night?”
She put her piece of chalk down and looks up at me. “Detective White carried me out of bed and put me through a window and told me to run. Then the bomb went off. I waited for them to come out. But none of them did. I ran to the village to see Mrs Charm and she made me hot chocolate. Later the Professor came to take me back to his castle.”
“Do you think they are dead?”
“No. He turned them into butterflies.”
Zedock has tea with Queen Victoria
I am escorted by a rather frail-looking servant gripping a pink frilled parasol into the gardens of the Queen. Her gardens are full of red roses. Fat heaps of fleshy petals. OPEN FOR ME. OPEN FOR ME. Show me your insides
She is surrounded by her roses. Red within red. You want to understand about power? You want to know what it is? Look at her.
SHE IS
COLLOSAL
Red horns five foot high sprout from her head, curl into points. She wears a dress of dazzling red, and stares at me with the intensity of a flesh eating insect, while an Indian servant fans her with black ostrich feathers. A selection of strawberry tarts and a green pot of tea wait for me.
“Ah, Zedock,” she smiles and curls a finger, drawing me closer. She is from Underneath. She is the very core of it. She is the only thing I have ever feared.
I take off my hat and seat myself next to the Queen of England,
The Queen of Hell
I kiss her hand. She pulls me close to her lips. The strength of her, the muscle nearly breaks my bones into dust.
“I am your humble servant, Your Majesty”
“YES YOU ARE, my darling.”
I can see inside her mouth. The rows and rows of teeth. How I worship her, how I love her. You are the Master of my heart. Magnificent, magnificent. EATER OF WORLDS.
SUPER CANNIBAL
SUPER CANNIBAL
All hail QUEEN VICTORIA!
She kisses my lips. I feel planets collide, explode into pieces. Lava hot. When she releases me, she knows all my secrets, she has tasted all my thoughts, my dreams, my wishes.
She pours the tea, and smiles. Oh thou wondrous crocodile! MAN EATER. Feel the chomp, the crunch of bones. Liquidize in her stomach: melt into her middle
“You are the only woman I have any respect for,” I say dizzy from her kiss, and I sip my tea, which has a curious aftertaste of meteorite.
“All humans are sausages,” she sighs and glances furtively at the servant whose legs are trembling and plops a strawberry tart on a plate and passes it to me.
I thank her, bite into it. Slice it in half with teeth.
“Why are you so worried about little Mr Loveheart, dearest? He’s a mad thing, no match for you, my darling.”
“He IRKS me,” I reply
“You are MY prime minister. You are my commander. You are my champion. FLATTEN HIM, EAT HIM UP,” and she stares into me, drags me under. Her red eyes are corridors into Hell: the carpets spongy with blood.
“Of course, my Queen.”
“Good boy. Mr Loveheart is edible. What do mad things taste of I wonder? Perhaps he is sweet,” and she takes another tart and pops it between her teeth. “You’ve always been so competitive Zedock,” and I know, if she wished it, she could splat me like a bug.
She continues, “But remember: I am the top of the food chain,” and she raises her finger to her servant, “Come to me.” Her voice is the darkest, most powerful hypnotism. I can feel the pressure; oh wondrous Queen. She is the horror fairytale. The garden shudders under her, ley lines form, fruit explodes in the trees.
The servant puts down the fan rather shakily and walks towards his Queen.
Hell is hungry.
Her gardens are full of red roses. Her gardens are full of blood. See them bloom, see them burst open ! Oooze. Seep their juices onto the lawn ;
drip
drip
drip.
Lick a petal and you will taste yourself.
Part Two
Boo Boo Grows Up
Boo Boo and Mr Angelcakes
The first time he visited me I was six and it was my first night in Uncle Grubweed’s house. Pedrock had kissed me goodnight and I was alone. Alone in the sticky blackness, waggling my feet over the end of the bed, examining the space between my toes. I had always wanted red shoes. I remember Sister Harriet at the convent, who smelt of floor polish, told me that witches wear red shoes. I think Sister Harriet is probably dead now.
Mr Angelcakes was wearing another man’s skin when he appeared. I thought he was an angel, his eyes were so bright, like firecrackers.
I didn’t like the way he was looking at me.
He made bite marks on my arms, said I tasted like ice-cream.
“Do angels eat ice-cream?” I said.
“All the time,” he replied. “Now don’t be afraid, Boo Boo. My name is Mr Angelcakes and I am here to teach you.”
“Teach me what?”
“To kill.”
I cuddled my frog puppet. I squeezed him close to my heart.
“I am going to make you very strong, Boo Boo. I am going to make you into a weapon.”
“I don’t understand,” I whispered.
“Tonight I am going to tell you a story,” and he touched my head with his finger, the skin loose and yellowish. I lay on the bed and closed my eyes and listened to the spider-words oozing from his mouth. Hairy, black little words. Tickling me with their fangs.
Once Upon a Time there was a young man called Mr Angelcakes and he had one thing he loved most in the world: his pet butterfly which was black and red.
But a very bad man called Hummingbird stole his butterfly and locked Mr Angelcakes in a tomb. Mr Angelcakes starved to death. And then something rather nasty took the skin off him and wore it. This nasty thing liked to eat human skins because they made him big and strong. The nasty thing liked the name Mr Angelcakes and decided to keep it.
So, the new Mr Angelcakes, deciding he wanted the butterfly Hummingbird had stolen, followed him back to England and watched him. The butterfly was very special, it protected Hummingbird from any harm and Mr Angelcakes couldn’t get close enough to steal it. The butterfly was believed to be the
soul of an Aztec warrior, the greatest warrior of the Empire. She had never been defeated in battle. For all butterflies are warrior souls.
And so, Mr Angelcakes waited and watched Hummingbird for many years. Hummingbird liked to collect butterflies and to increase his collection he married women to inherit their butterfly collections and then killed them or stuffed them in madhouses.
One day Mr Angelcakes found a little girl who could help him and her name was Boo Boo. He decided he would make her into a warrior. And when she was old enough she would steal the butterfly and kill Hummingbird
Suddenly Pedrock came into the room. Mr Angelcakes disappeared, popped like a balloon. A fizzle-whiff of ice-cream scent hung in the air. Sweet-stale.
I was so frightened I did not know what to say, so I said nothing. If an Angel had been speaking to me, he must have been telling me the truth, and so I shut my mouth.
Before I fell asleep I counted the wobbly stars in the sky. I counted them until my eyelids shut like a book.
And I dreamt of skin, rolls and rolls of weird fabric. And there were angels sewing human skin costumes. Black threads looped through silver-sharp needles. Soggy bits were discarded, slung aside. Scraps for the angel-dogs. They chattered amongst themselves and their language was strange: squawks and low murmurs. Squealing and tongue clicking. Is this what angels really sound like? A mishmash of other sounds. Stolen perhaps. Around my neck was a magnifying glass on a black chain. A necklace. I held it up to my eyes and peered through the peephole. I could see them for what they really were.
Rotting things, falling apart in time. Leathery bubbling skin, green popping eyeballs.