by RA Jones
“It’s just for a day, two at the most,” Gran added after a while.
“But what am I going to do at Mrs Walpole’s?” Sam protested.
“You could help with the cats.”
“I don’t want to help with the cats. She might make me do the muckings.”
“She won’t.”
“How do you know? This isn’t fair. I’m supposed to be on holiday with you.”
“I know, Sam,” said Gran, and she sounded suddenly genuinely regretful. “It’s just that something has come up and it can’t wait.”
“Why can’t I come with you?”
“You can’t. It’s not s…it’s not possible.”
Sam frowned. For one minute there, it had sounded suspiciously like Gran was going to say ‘not safe.’ “Why are Troop and Ginger in the car? Are they going with you?”
“Yes, but…”
“Oh, so it’s okay for a cat and a dog but not for me? That’s just not fair.”
Gran looked across at him, but she wasn’t angry anymore. “Things aren’t always fair in this world, Sam. It’s about time you realised that. I’ll make it up to you, I promise, but there’s nothing to discuss. I’ve made my mind up.”
When they got to the cattery, Sam got out of the car and was immediately surrounded by a dozen cats that started meowing and rubbing against his shoes and squeezing themselves between his legs as he tried to walk.
“Get off,” Sam said as he almost tripped. He shot Gran an accusing stare. “See, I can’t stay here. These cats are all mental.”
“They just like you.”
“They don’t even know me,” Sam whinged.
“Cats are very mysterious creatures at the best of times, Samuel. Maybe they like you because of something you’ve done in the past, or maybe even yet to do.”
“If I stay here, they might all gang up on me more like,” Sam argued, not really listening.
Just then Mrs Walpole appeared in her pink sweatshirt. “Oh Gwladys,” she said, “I see you’ve brought Sam. Everything is arranged.” She brushed hair from her eyes and looked a bit flushed.
“I am so grateful for you having him like this, Alicia,” Gran said, “but I can’t stop to chat. I must be getting on.”
“Oh, but I have some cherry bakewells just about to come out of the oven,” said Mrs Walpole.
Gran, who had seemed to be most anxious to leave, suddenly had a severe case of the second thoughts. “Really?” she said. “Not your special cherry bakewells with extra almonds and icing?”
“The very same.” Mrs Walpole smiled. “I thought you might like some for the journey.”
“You shouldn’t have,” said Gran, following Mrs Walpole into the house.
Sam was still fuming over Gran rushing off like this. All sorts of thoughts and feelings were bubbling up in his head. A truculent bit of him was glad that she was going because it hadn’t been very much fun being with Gran that day. At least with Mrs Walpole he might be allowed to do what he wanted – as long as it was to do with cats. But then another part of him felt strangely anxious. He had no idea why for quite some time – until his mother’s overheard words popped into his head again.
“She’s not as young as she was… She’s still in pain…. She obviously needs a bit of looking after.”
What if something happened to Gran? What if she went somewhere and fell over and broke her other hip? What would his mother and father say about him then? Sam pondered that thought, and in the process, had an idea. He was never sure where exactly it came from, but like most brainwaves, it was there in his head in an instant.
“I’m going to the meadow,” he said loudly in his best grumpy voice.
“Okay, Sam,” sang Mrs Walpole over her shoulder. “Tea is at five.”
But Sam didn’t head for the meadow. He waited until both women were out of sight and tiptoed towards Gran’s car. He opened the back door and heard Troop whine a welcome.
“Shh,” Sam said as he swiftly arranged some old coats of Gran’s on the floor between the front and back seat and lay down. Quickly he pulled down the edge of the blanket that was covering whatever Gran had loaded the car up with so that it covered him too. He made himself comfortable and waited. He’d just settled when he noticed the racket. It sounded like twenty cats meowing at the same time very close by.
“Oh no,” groaned Sam.
He scrambled up on to his knees and peered out of the back seat window. Yes, just as he’d feared, twenty-five cats sat outside the car, meowing to their hearts’ content. Sam waved his arms and hissed, “Get lost,” through the glass, but this just seemed to make the meowing louder.
Desperate now, Sam opened the back door carefully and in a loud whisper said,
“Leave me alone. You’ll give the game away.”
The cats stopped meowing.
“Look,” Sam said, “I’m glad you like me alright, but if you all stay there, Gran and Mrs Walpole will know I’m here. Something’s up. Something really weird and I don’t know if Gran can sort it out on her own. So I’m going to find out what it is, okay?”
To Sam’s utter amazement, as one the cats turned tail and sashayed off towards the meadow just as Sam heard Gran and Mrs Walpole’s voices emerging from the direction of the house. He ducked back down and pulled over the blanket.
“These smell gorgeous, Alicia,” Gran said.
“Can’t get them any fresher,” Mrs Walpole said. “And don’t worry about Sam, he’ll be fine. You never know, he might even help out with the muckings.” Mrs Walpole let out one of her whinnying laughs.
Sam was bitterly disappointed not to hear Gran protest.
Chapter 4: Libby Brown
The journey seemed to take forever. There was something hard on the floor of the car that felt like an iron bar in the small of Sam’s back and which prevented him from getting too comfortable. But he was determined to stay quiet and still. Occasionally he risked a glimpse of the outside world as they sped along. All he could see from where he lay were the tops of trees and sometimes a glimpse of blue as a motorway sign flashed by. But there was nothing that helped him work out where they were going.
The radio played songs that Sam had never heard, and sometimes Gran hummed or sang along. Finally, after several hours, the car slowed down and he was rolled from side to side as they started to take some serious bends. Then they climbed for what seemed like an age before, quite abruptly, the car came to a full stop.
The thing that struck Sam more than anything was the sudden silence. Up to that point there had been the whooshing of other cars and the drone of the engine and the tinny music from the radio, but now there was absolutely nothing. No wind, no other cars, no birds. Nothing, except the occasional metallic click of the cooling engine. He heard the front door open and the series of small puffs and groans that Gran always made getting in or out of the car. He waited for an “Ooh, me poor joints,” and was a bit disappointed when it didn’t come.
He heard the door shut again and once more there was a dead silence. Sam pulled down the blanket and looked up. Outside the window there was nothing. No shapes or shadows, just a dense white mist that swirled and billowed. It seemed to Sam that it wasn’t dissimilar to the stuff that had poured out of the engine when they’d stopped that morning. He struggled up onto one knee to look out between the front seats. There, just in front of the bonnet of the car, was Gran. She was waving her arms about like those people he’d seen on TV at race courses that took bets. The only difference was that Gran looked like a demented one, and Sam thought he could hear her chanting too. But then, something truly extraordinary happened. Gran took a deep breath and began to blow out air.
The mist in front of her began to clear away as if it was being burned, writhing and retracting like the tentacles of some huge octopus. It left a clear gap in the fog. Still Gran continued to blow and still the gap continued to clear and Sam saw the road ahead revealed. They were on a single track on a moor with nothing but grass on either side.
Grass and then the mist. After a whole minute of blowing, Gran stopped to catch her breath and leaned on the bonnet for support. Sam ducked down again just in time because a second later, Gran got back into the car and started the engine. The car moved forward slowly negotiating more bends until finally they started descending.
But Sam wasn’t thinking about the journey anymore; his heart was racing too quickly. There was no doubting what he’d seen with his own eyes. Gran had just done something – something weird – and the mist had just melted away. But what exactly had she done? Called up the wind? Cast a spell? He shook his head. Gran, his Gran, didn’t do stuff like that. His brain boiled with unanswered questions as he lay under the blanket. Eventually the road began to flatten out once more until finally they came to a full stop. Gran got out. This time she left the door open and Sam risked another peek. Outside, the mist had gone and through the side window, he could see a stone cottage surrounded by an overgrown garden. His grandmother was at the door of the cottage, trying to get a stubborn key to fit, muttering to herself as she shoved at the door with her shoulder.
Sam saw his chance. Quietly, he eased open the back door on the side away from the cottage and backed out, keeping nice and low. His knees were really stiff after the journey and he desperately wanted to stand up, but he daren’t. He hid behind the rear of the car, one eye on Gran, as he took in his surroundings. The cottage nestled on a hillside overlooking a neat village. A row of small houses and cottages lined a curving street. Behind, the landscape was made up of a series of regular mounds of small hills dotted with copses and ferns. It reminded Sam of the lid of the box of chocolates Gran gave Mrs Walpole for Christmas every year.
He glanced again at Gran. She didn’t look any different but Sam was seeing her in a different way. A “what exactly is she going to do next?” kind of way. He was half expecting her to mutter an incantation and blow the front door off its hinges, but all she did was force the cottage door open with her shoulder, and suddenly she was coming back down the path. Sam ducked even lower and eased his way around the back of the car.
Gran went to the rear door and pulled off the blanket and started to grab the boxes of provisions she’d loaded. Sam waited until Gran’s head was buried in the car. He sprinted low for the cottage garden and hid behind a large bush. He squatted there while Gran took in one load of stuff and, just after she passed him on the way back out to the car, slipped in through the cottage door like a thief. He was expecting to have to dash around trying to find somewhere to hide, but to his utter astonishment, he saw that inside the cottage was exactly like Gran’s bungalow: same furniture and decorations, same living room and kitchen, and even the same layout in his bedroom.
“How weird is that?” he said to himself. He ran into the living room and ducked behind a sofa and watched as Gran completed her removals. He couldn’t stay in the living room, that was clear, but since Gran had no idea he was there, the most obvious place to hide would be in the last place she’d look; his bedroom.
Sam waited until Gran went out for another load and then hurried to the room opposite the box room. Inside, it had an unmade bed and the drawers and wardrobe were just the same as in the bungalow. Except, of course, none of his things were in the drawers. But the bed did have an eiderdown which hung over the sides just enough to hide someone lying beneath. That was where Sam secreted himself. He could hear Gran’s to-ing and fro-ing, but his mind was racing as he tried to work out just what was going on. Why did Gran have a cottage in the middle of nowhere set out in exactly the same way as her bungalow? And how could she blow a passage through the mist like she had done on the moor? It didn’t make any sense at all. He heard Troop’s paws pad along the passageway and felt a cold nose on his leg.
“Go away, Troop,” Sam said. “You’ll give the game away.”
But Troop just wagged his tail and sniffed. But finally he got bored and padded off somewhere else. Then Ginger came in and meowed for a while, but then he went away too. Shortly after, Sam heard Gran mumble and groan and the door to the bedroom flew open. But all he heard after that was the twang of the springs as Gran dumped something heavy on the bed before shuffling off.
Lying on the floor of the car for hours had not been very comfortable. But under the bed, there was a warm carpet. Sam must have dozed off because the next thing he remembered was the noise of the doorbell. He wiped a dribble of saliva from the corner of his mouth and crept out from under the bed to peek through the open door. Troop and Ginger were sitting in the passageway watching the door avidly. Gran appeared from the living room.
“Coming,” she said and opened the door.
Silhouetted against the late afternoon light was a big woman. She was taller than Gran and much rounder. She had grey hair and glasses and seemed to be smiling a lot.
“Libby Brown,” Gran exclaimed. “This is a surprise.”
Troop began to growl low in his throat.
“Ah,” said Libby Brown. “I see you’ve brought the animals.”
“Just the two. Troop, hush now. Don’t know what’s got into him, I really don’t.”
Sam looked at Troop. His ears were back and he didn’t look at all pleased. Ginger’s fur looked like it was a dish of iron filings recently exposed to a magnet.
“Been cooped up in the car for hours. Ignore them,” added Gran. “Come in, come in.”
Sam wanted to shout out to Gran and say no, don’t let her in. Because he, like Troop and Ginger, didn’t like the way Libby Brown was smiling. At least her mouth was smiling, but her eyes weren’t. They looked sharp and calculating. And his and the animals’ instincts were proved alarmingly correct by something Libby Brown did as she followed Gran into the kitchen. At the very last moment, when Gran was through the door and unable to see Libby, the big woman turned her face towards Troop and Ginger and it transformed into something ghastly. It was like the worst Halloween mask Sam had ever seen. From that horrible face protruded a tongue. And the worst of it was, the tongue looked as if it was dark blue.
Troop whined and Ginger hissed.
“Nice,” Sam said quietly to himself once the tingling in his spine had faded.
Libby Brown had one of those voices that could carry though a thunderstorm. He didn’t have to try too hard to hear the two women reminiscing about the ‘old days’ while Gran put the kettle on. But to make sure he didn’t miss anything, he crept forward to sit in the passageway with Troop and Ginger. Mostly they talked about people Sam had never heard of, but then there was a pause and he heard Libby ask, “So what brings you back here, Mother Merryweather?”
Mother Merryweather? That was what the girl had called her.
“I got the call, Libby,” Gran said. “Right out of the blue. It shook me something rotten, I can tell you.”
“From here?” Libby sounded shocked. “Someone contacted you from here?”
“They surely did. And the word Dreables was mentioned.”
“Never,” said Libby, sounding shocked.
“Indeed it was. But you sound surprised, Libby. I assume that means you’ve seen nothing?”
“Not a thing,” Libby said.
“Of course, that doesn’t mean a lot. Dreables don’t usually make themselves visible to adults anyway.”
“I shall be vigilant from now on, Mother Merryweather, you can be sure of that. Now, I’ve just made some fresh vanilla custard tarts for the bakery and I’ve brought some for you. Would you care for one with your tea?”
Sam heard the sudden rattle of crockery, as if a hand holding a cup and saucer had begun to tremble uncontrollably.
“Care for one of your vanilla custard tarts?” Gran said in a trembling voice. “Do dogs like bones?”
Sam heard plates being put onto the wooden table followed by the sound of Gran wimpering – which usually accompanied her catching sight of something delicious from the bakery world.
“Eese aah underful,” Gran said through a full mouth. “Eely underful, mmmm…”
Suddenly
, Gran was cut off in full flow, like someone turning off the switch of a radio. There followed a sudden silence and then a faint choking noise and then a very loud thud, like something heavy falling to the floor. Sam wanted to run to the kitchen door to see what was going on but he stopped himself. Every fibre in his body screamed out at him that it was something bad. There were more seconds of silence before a new noise, a horrid, low grunting noise, began to emerge from the kitchen. From within that noise emerged a chuckle and finally words – of a sort – around the chuckle. And they were not particularly pleasant words at that.
“Sleepy, sleepy tricksy…He’s got you, Mother Merryweather, heh, heh, heh…Serves you right for scoffing…serves you right for scoffing the sleepy tricksy tarts. Heh, heh.”
There was more shuffling and Sam had just enough time and sense to dash back into the bedroom before Libby appeared in the passageway. Except it wasn’t the Libby he’d seen moments before. This Libby was hunched over so that her knuckles brushed the floor when she walked – in fact, it was more a shamble – towards the front door, which she proceeded to open. Then Troop growled again. Slowly, the Libby thing turned towards him.
“Horrible doggy and disgusting moggy. Want some sleepy tricksy cakes? Come on, nice doggy.” Libby retrieved a vanilla custard tart from a wicker basket in her hand and lobbed it towards Troop. It landed right in front of him. The dog sniffed it and whined, but he didn’t eat it.
“Bah…horrible doggy. He’ll send someone for you, he will. Make you into soup, he will, heh, heh…”
Troop growled louder and to his delight, Sam saw Libby Brown flinch. And then the most horrible and weird thing he’d ever seen in his life took place in front of his eyes. Libby Brown started to shake and shudder in front of him. Something was happening to her. A shadow appeared around her, a fuzzy shape that was accompanied by a gluey sucking noise like trying to unstick a plunger from a tile floor. Something was separating itself from Libby Brown. Something that was disgusting to look at. It was vague and somehow insubstantial, but it had a big knobbly head and a bowed over body with long arms to the ground and tusks for teeth and small, pig-like eyes. There was a final gloopy pop and Libby Brown, or the body of Libby Brown, collapsed to the ground, leaving the other phantom shape in the passageway staring at Troop and Ginger.