Something Strange in the Cellar

by George Chedzoy

  Chapter 12: THE GHOSTS RETURN

  Lou and Jack stumbled their way back towards the house, planning to skirt round it before returning across the moors, until they were far enough away to ring the police in safety. Idwal could not be left trapped in the cellar indefinitely. He needed to be picked up and placed under arrest as soon as possible. It was not easy for the children to run in bed sheets but it was safer to stay disguised until they were sure all danger had passed.

  There was always the chance that Idwal had managed to escape, but it was a remote one. Mrs Owen might have heard his cries and gone down the stairs and released him, but it was unlikely that she would leave the sanctuary of her bedroom before dawn. She would be in her bedroom petrified once again, with her head buried in her pillows. In any case, with a table and a sack of potatoes over the trapdoor, Idwal’s loudest cries would have been difficult to hear upstairs.

  Poor Mrs Owen! Lou was furious at the cruel treatment meted out by her great nephew, simply so he could get his hands on her wealth. As the house loomed ahead of them, it occurred to her that it was locked front and back. How would the police get in if Mrs Owen was too scared to come downstairs and open the door? They would end up breaking their way in, most probably, out of concern for her welfare and the need to carry out an arrest. Mrs Owen really didn’t need a broken-down door to add to her problems.

  ‘Jack, I’ve been thinking,’ said Lou. ‘We’re going to have to return to the house and leave the back door key where the police can find it, so they can let themselves in. There’s no way she’ll come down the stairs to answer the door to them in the dead of night.’

  ‘In fact, oughtn’t we to wait in the house with her, until the police arrive?’ said Jack. ‘Somehow it doesn’t seem right to just clear off leaving her in the house with an irate Idwal trapped in the cellar.

  ‘Ok but it won’t be her he’ll be mad with, but us,’ said Lou. ‘It may be too dangerous for us to wait in the house but certainly we owe it to Mrs Owen to return and reassure her that everything is ok. We’ll peek through the kitchen window first, to make sure that Idwal hasn’t managed to force open the trapdoor.’

  Lou and Jack let themselves back in through Mrs Owen’s garden gate. They crept to the kitchen window and peered in. The waxing moon no longer illuminated any part of the interior. In darkness, it was hard to tell whether the kitchen table was still on top of the trapdoor. Reluctantly, Lou took out her torch and shone it through the window pane.

  Thank goodness! The table leg, flanked by the sack of potatoes, was still firmly in position. Unless Idwal had burrowed his way out of the cellar like a mole, he was still well and truly trapped.

  ‘Come on, Jack, let’s go in and get it over with,’ whispered Lou, as they approached the back door. ‘As quietly as you can so that Idwal doesn’t hear us.’

  Lou turned the key gently in the lock and the pair of them padded inside. What sounded like an angry poltergeist banged and clattered below their feet. Idwal shouted and cursed but the sound was muffled by the potatoes. Jack looked at the floor in alarm. From the way Idwal was making the table rattle, it was clear he had managed to unlock the trapdoor but fortunately was no match for the ton weight bearing down on it.

  The children went silently along the corridor to the staircase. and tiptoed upstairs. Lou wanted to call to Mrs Owen right outside her bedroom door to minimise the chances of being overheard by Idwal. They winced as the stairs creaked a couple of times.

  At the top of the staircase was a window which overlooked the back garden. Lou glanced out of it. As she did so, a flickering light caught her eye.

  ‘Jack, over there. What’s that?’

  Jack gazed out. ‘Torchlight! Two or three torches, I should say.’

  The pair watched aghast as the beams of light approached. Barely visible under a now weakening moon, was a line of white cloaks. The ghosts were back! Why oh why had they returned? Why hadn’t they cleared off in their getaway van and gone back to bed or to a grotty drug den somewhere?

  ‘Did you lock the back door as we came in?’ asked Jack.

  ‘Yes,’ said Lou. ‘Thank goodness, they can’t get in, without breaking in. But they might do that you know, if they suspect Idwal is stuck in the cellar. They clearly felt it was odd that he was missing and come back for him.’

  ‘Perhaps he has managed to communicate with them by mobile phone or something, from the cellar,’ said Jack, ‘in which case, they’ll be seeking to get in.’

  ‘I very much doubt you could get a signal below ground,’ whispered Lou. ‘More likely, they feel he’s fallen and hurt himself or something and they’ve come back to rescue him. Either way, we have to get out of here and get help.’

  There’s another window at the other end of the landing,’ said Jack. ‘Let’s see if the coast is clear that way.’

  It wasn’t. There were more spooky figures that side of the house, too. All twelve of Idwal’s pals had returned and were fanning out searching for him.

  ‘Jack, we’re trapped! They can’t get in but we can’t get out either, not without them seeing us,’ exclaimed Lou. ‘They’re all round the house. It’s only a matter of time before they press their faces against the kitchen window and hear his muffled cries through the glass. Either that or they’ll shine their torches in and spot that the trapdoor has been deliberately blocked.’

  Jack looked at Lou in fright. ‘We can’t safely get out but we can’t safely stay inside here either. What are we going to do?’

  ‘Listen, we’re still in our ghost costumes. If we can sneak out and blend back in with them, we may have a chance to give them the slip as we did before,’ said Lou. ‘Come on.’

  Lou and Jack tiptoed down the stairs and headed along the corridor to the back door. Torchlight was flashing across the garden. They could not sneak out of the house that way without being spotted.

  Then they heard the door handle being pumped up and down! The ghosts were trying to get in! They ran to the front door on the off chance they could open it from the inside. Torch beams flickered through the windows that side too and ghosts were also trying that door handle!

  ‘Let’s go to the study, there might be a window or something we could climb out of,’ said Lou. The study was under the gable end of the house, Lou had noticed it the day they had first met Mrs Owen.

  Its window had an old-fashioned latch and handle. Through it, all looked dark. They might be able to climb through unnoticed. It was stiff and hadn’t been used for a long time, but eventually it pushed open.

  ‘Ok, Jack, I will jump out first to see if we are safe. I will need to check both corners of the outside wall. I’ll be back in a minute,’ said Lou.

  She clambered clumsily through the frame, it wasn’t easy dressed in a bed sheet. Jack did not want to be left alone but it was pointless him taking the risk of accompanying her until it was certain that the coast was clear. The gable end was not being watched but was right next to a rockface. Lou and Jack could not safely climb it, certainly not in the dark.

  Idwal’s mates were prowling on both sides of the house. Some were peering through the downstairs windows; others were searching around the perimeter. Observing them round a corner, Lou detected that their mood had become suspicious and angry, although she couldn’t make out what they were saying.

  There was simply no exit from the grounds of Mrs Owen’s house without being seen. The way the gang were searching, it was almost as if they were looking for two short ghosts – the imposters – as well as seeking to find Idwal.

  Think, Lou think!, she told herself. She had to come up with an escape plan. If that was impossible, they must simply ring the police and hope they came in time. But she knew, with a chill in her heart, that the local police stations were empty these days and that by the time officers had made it over from Pwllheli, some half a dozen miles away, Idwal’s gang would have broken in, released him and be well and truly on their scent.

  She peeped again around the wall
into the rear garden. As she did so, she noticed a jagged glimmer of light from the far corner. It was flickering the way that moonlight or sunshine did across water. For a moment, the sight startled Lou, but it was only Mrs Owen’s large garden pond, half hidden by bushes. She’d noticed a duck waddle from it the previous day.

  An idea struck her. She ran back to Jack waiting for her at the window.

  ‘Jack, it’s me. We’re still trapped. We can’t get out of the grounds of this house from either side and we’re on borrowed time if we stay inside. Now listen carefully. I want you to ring the police and tell them what’s happened and the predicament we are in, then stay put by this window, ready to leap out. If you hear anyone breaking in before I’m back, get out first. While you’re doing that, I’m going to try and create a distraction. I need to borrow your ghost costume. I don’t have time to explain why, just trust me on this.’

  Jack was reluctant to take it off. The spooky bed sheets he and Lou were wearing gave them crucial camouflage. But there was no time to ask questions. He did as she asked and slipped it off his shoulders. ‘Please Lou, don’t be long, I’m begging you. I don’t know how much more of this I can take.’

  Lou gave his wrist a squeeze through the open window, turned round and vanished round the gable end. There were two or three ghosts the other side but she walked boldly towards the rear of the garden in full view of them. It would be a mistake to creep about guiltily.

  She got to the edge of the pond and gazed at its surface, rippling in a gentle breeze. The moon’s weakening rays were still strong enough to illuminate it reasonably well. It looked a good, reasonably deep pool.

  To her alarm, she heard a series of thuds. It sounded like the ghosts were intent upon smashing through the back door. Did they suspect their leader was imprisoned in the cellar? There was not a moment to lose!