Goth Girl and the Ghost of a Mouse
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Bruges tapestry, a bunch of keys in one hand and a huntsman’s horn in the other. He shook the keys theatrically. ‘I have released this year’s quarry!’ he announced. ‘Let the indoor hunt begin!’ Maltravers raised the horn to his mouth and blew hard. Lord Goth and his guests leaped forward on their hobby horses, galloped though the doorway to the broken wing and clattered down the flight of stairs on the other side before charging down the dark cobwebby corridor beyond. ‘Tally who?’ ‘Tally what?’ ‘Tally where?’
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The cries went up as they set about exploring the corridors, hallways and passages. Maltravers, though, had left nothing to chance. Daubed on the walls at helpful intervals were messages with arrows that read, ‘This way’, ‘Turn left’, ‘Turn right’ and ‘Carry on till the next junction’. As Lord Goth and his guests clattered along the corridors, they caught glimpses of feathered creatures fluttering ahead and heard the clatter of fleeing hooves and odd wild ape-like grunts echoing through the broken wing. Floorboards had been pulled up and laid on the stairs to allow the hobby horses to trundle up them in
pursuit of the indoor game, which fled upward just ahead of the pursuing guests. Flashes of orange fur and glimpses of bright green feathers and golden claws only served to spur the indoor hunt onward as the riders waved their butterfly nets wildly above their heads. Outside the watching villagers cheered and waved their flaming torches as they strained to see the shadowy shapes through the filthy windows. Higher and higher the creatures and their pursuers went, up staircases prepared for them by the indoor gamekeeper. As the indoor hunt neared the upper levels of the broken wing, Lord Goth on Pegasus fell back in dismay. Finally the indoor hunt arrived on a landing with a large sign daubed on the wall that read, ‘This way straight ahead’. Von Hellsung galloped forward and burst through the door in front of them. The others followed and
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found themselves on the rooftops of the broken wing. A forest of chimney stacks stretched out before them and the dome of Ghastly-Gorm Hall rose up behind, dark against the moonlit sky. Below, the torches of the watching villagers twinkled. Lord Goth galloped through the doorway in last place and fell trembling to his knees. Pegasus clattered down on to the tiles as Lord Goth released his grip on the handlebars. His guests turned and stared at him. When Lord Goth looked up his handsome face was wet with tears. His magnificent hair fluttered in the breeze and his brooding eyebrows knitted into a sorrowful frown. ‘Parthenope,’ he breathed, ‘So headstrong, so wilful, so wild. That is why I fell in love with you and why I couldn’t stop you from coming up here to walk the roof ridges . . . oh, but that night! The thunder! The lightning! . . . The horror, the horror . . .’
‘There they are!’ shouted Rupert von Hellsung, pointing excitedly. Sitting on the ornamental chimneys a little way off were eight extraordinary creatures seemingly frozen in terror – a Siren, three harpies, a faun, a centaur and two great apes. Lady George, Tristram, the poets, Dr Jensen, MacDuff and Mary Shellfish raised their butterfly nets, only for von Hellsung to push them roughly aside. ‘They’re mine!’ he roared, throwing back his bearskin cape to reveal two quadruple-barrelled hunting pistols in calf leather holsters strapped to his belt. On one holster the word ‘Hansel’ was stamped in raised letters; on the other, ‘Gretel’. As the others watched, stunned, von Hellsung
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drew the hunting pistols and fired – once, twice, four times, eight times . . . With each deadly shot, one of the creatures shattered in front of the onlookers. Von Hellsung holstered Hansel and Gretel with a delighted grin and drew a long serrated hunting sword from his belt. ‘Now for the heads!’ he said, as he strode across the rooftop to the row of chimneys but then he stopped dead in his tracks. ‘What’s this?’ he roared. At his feet was a pile of broken ice. At that moment Ada stepped out from behind an ornamental chimney a little way further off. The Siren Sesta was by her side.
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From the chimneys around her, the other members of the Attic Club emerged, each with a creature. Ruby the outer-pantry maid stood next to Mr Omalos the faun. Emily Cabbage had a harpy on each arm and one perched on her head. Kingsley the chimney caretaker was arm in arm with the Wife of Barnes, and Arthur Halford was holding hands with the Wildman of Putney while William Cabbage patted Hamish the Shetland centaur on his shaggy head. ‘I will have my trophies!’ shrieked von Hellsung, leaping up on to a chimney pot and jumping across to another, swinging his hunting sword wildly as he advanced across the rooftop. ‘Rupert von Hellsung, we meet at last,’ came a soft lilting voice with the hint of an accent. Lucy Borgia stepped out from behind a chimney stack and raised an umbrella. The gold tip glinted in the moonlight. ‘How dare you . . . !’ von Hellsung began,
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slashing at the governess with his sword, only for Lucy Borgia to take three steps back, pirouette on top of a chimney pot and lightly but firmly nudge her assailant in the middle of his tummy with the tip of her umbrella. Losing his balance, von Hellsung teetered for a moment before toppling like a felled fir tree down the chimney on which he’d been standing. A series of bumps and crashes followed, together with shrieks of pain and indignation getting fainter and fainter until a final muffled thump. ‘He’ll have landed in the Bathroom of Zeus, I reckon,’ said Kingsley the chimney caretaker with a knowing glance down the chimney. ‘Well played, Ada!’ Ada blushed. ‘I couldn’t have done it without you,’ she said, ‘without all of you.’ A huge figure loomed up behind her wearing a sea captain’s hat and a sailcloth coat. On his shoulder was perched an albatross. The Polar
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Meet Ada Goth. She lives in Ghastly-Gorm Hall with her father’ Lord Goth’ lots of servants and at least half a dozen ghosts’ but she hasn’t got any friends to explore her enormous’ creepy house with. Then, one night, everything changes when Ada meets a ghostly mouse called Ishmael. Together they set out to solve the mystery of the strange aning happenings at Ghastly-Gorm Hall, ather a and get a lot more than they n ed bargained for . . . . .
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